


The War At Home: Day 4

by serendipityxxi



Series: The Void [7]
Category: Haven (TV)
Genre: AU, F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Multi, Polyamory, The Void, by learning to use the troubles, defeating Croatoan, solving the troubles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-08
Updated: 2018-12-31
Packaged: 2019-07-28 02:30:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 30,021
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16232378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/serendipityxxi/pseuds/serendipityxxi
Summary: Audrey, Duke and Nathan escape the Void and solve the Troubles. Mostly...Chapters will go up once a week.Day 4 is where the big stuff... well, bigger stuff, really goes down! Hope you guys are excited! :)





	1. A New World Order

**Author's Note:**

> So many thanks to Jadzibelle for all the beta-ing and hand holding!

Audrey wakes up in one of the little parks that are scattered throughout downtown The grass beneath her is brown and brittle with the cold. She can hear voices not far off. She thinks maybe she and Nathan had lunch here once when the weather was warm and they were just figuring out their partnership. She clenches her jaw. He better be okay. It’s just about midday now, she can tell by the scant rays of sun peeking through the clouds. It was almost noon when they arrived at the Sutcliffe mansion. Has she lost a whole day? What’s been happening while she was out?

Sitting up jostles her arm and the pain makes her head swim. She has to be very, very still and take long breaths through her nose before she can look down. On the bright side the bone isn't sticking up through her jacket, but it’s definitely broken. “Okay. Not good,” she mutters, squeezing her eyes shut tight and again with the deep breaths to keep her lunch where it belongs.

 _C’mon Parker, you’re tougher than this,_ she chides herself, shrugging out of her jacket on the good side. She’s not going to make it very far like this and there’s only one solution she’s got available to her at the moment; it’s not calling 911. Not with Croatoan’s words ringing in her ears. She’s not sure what he’s done. It all looks the same but that doesn’t mean anything.

Slowly, slowly, she edges the jacket sleeve off her bad arm, tears rolling down her face. She closes her eyes and takes a shuddery breath.

She pulls out the vial with the five blobs of aether in it from the pocket of her jeans. Dumb of him not to have searched her. This is a much more dangerous weapon than her sidearm and they both know it. She looks at the aether Croatoan stole from Duke. Aether she herself woke in Duke what feels like years ago, but can’t have even been two months. She holds the vial between her knees and tips a blob of aether out into her left hand. She has no clue if this is going to work but she can’t go running around like this and she has no idea who she can trust to help.

Audrey doesn’t have the heart to push up the sleeve of her sweater too. She sets her aether covered hand over the arm and concentrates fiercely. She's going to fix this. Aether responds to will. It does what it’s told. She’s seen it work in the most awful and harmful ways because it takes instructions at face value. Audrey is careful, she’s thorough. She's just got to fix this. She wills the aether to merge the broken bones, knitting them together, mending them, healing muscle and torn skin with the force of her thoughts. She wills it to happen and suddenly, amazingly, the aether makes it so.

She gasps as the pain leaves grim satisfaction and wonder in its place. When she pushes up the sleeve all that’s left are the purple bruises of Joseph Cross’ fingers ringing her arm like a goddamn bracelet.

“To hell with that,” she mutters and lifts her hand to wrap it around her arm again but her palm is pink and aether-free. It’s all been used up. Audrey considers using another but there are only four left.  

Audrey pulls down the sleeve of her sweater again, shrugs on her coat and gets to her feet. The world sways dangerously for a moment, her head spinning. She feels wrung out like a wet towel.

She closes her eyes and sucks in air through her nose, giving herself a moment to reorient herself. She’s felt like this before, in the Void, after she used aether to burn the crocotta. _It will pass,_ she tells herself firmly, ignoring the little voice inside that is screaming about how dangerous it is to be this weak in hostile territory. Audrey cannot ignore the pain that swells in her chest at the thought that Haven is hostile territory. This is home. She lets anger come in to swamp the pain. Like hell is she going to let that bastard have it.

The voices she heard earlier are from a group of people a block and a half away on her right. They’re standing together talking with abrupt, agitated hand gestures. None of them are looking her way though. To the left there’s only one woman walking toward a parked car. Audrey opts to go left. Hopefully the woman will have driven off by the time she gets out of the park.

Her mind whirs as she stumbles down the path. The place Croatoan was holding her - that had to have been the Moonrise Point lighthouse. She could hear the sea from there, and there was no other location close enough for him to have been using as a lair. So now she has a destination. She just hopes she can get there fast enough.

And when she gets there?

 _What are you going to do,_ she demands of herself. _Croatoan just booted you out of his house with a thought._

Ahead of her, the woman retrieves a bag from the back seat of the car and slams the door. She turns to head down the sidewalk and Audrey realizes it’s Beattie. Beattie spots her at the same time and her face for a moment is a mask of terror before she schools her features into a fake smile.

Audrey glances around but she’s the only person around. She puts up a hand and waves. Beattie waves back but it’s shaky and brief. She presses the key fob to her car again, and again, glancing from Audrey to the door. Finally the lock beeps but Beattie drops her keys in her haste to get in the car. She scrabbles the keys up and wrenches the car door open, all the while keeping her eyes on Audrey like she’s a wolf about to pounce. Audrey stops in her tracks and watches Beattie slam her door and drive off, engine revving like thunder.

Audrey glances back to check if that got the attention of the people down the street. One man catches her look and his eyes go wide with terror. He puts a hand on his friend’s shoulder and whispers something quickly. Two more of the group of five glance her way and then they all scurry off, perp walking in that ‘I am not running but I am not _not_ running either’ way. They disappear around the corner quickly.

Audrey thinks she’s getting an idea of what’s different about this version of Haven.

So she’s the boogey man here. She can live with that for now. It’s not permanent. She doesn’t need to be liked to kill Croatoan.

It’d be nice if she didn’t have to walk back out to the Moonrise Point Lighthouse though.

Audrey orients herself and heads toward the PD. If she’s lucky Allan’s parked his car down the street from the station with his keys in the visor like always. She rounds the corner with her eyes open for pedestrians, anyone who might flee at the sight of her.

She doesn’t see the bat that comes crashing down on the back of her head.

Stunned, she drops to the ground, stars bursting before her closed lids even as rough hands wrap her wrists in rope. She wants to struggle, to fight but her limbs aren’t responding just yet.

“Hurry, I think she’s coming around!”

“What’s she even doing out here?”

“Who cares! We’re just lucky Beattie called us.”

Audrey feels herself being picked up and then dragged into the backseat of a truck. It stinks of cigarettes and stale sweat. She keeps her eyes shut, not wanting to tip off her attackers she’s awake. She sneaks a look after the two front doors slam closed and the engine starts. She recognizes Riley and Darren as members of the Guard. This is the second time Riley’s been in on a kidnapping attempt and Audrey’s going to start taking it personally very soon.

What the hell is going on in this version of Haven that they’d risk abducting her in broad daylight though?

Cautiously Audrey wriggles her wrists. They’re tied together. It’s an amateur move, one that she’s grateful for. She spent hours practicing how to escape from rope, duct tape and handcuffs in the long sleepless nights after she was kidnapped by Arla. Zip ties are the easiest, but she’d impressed Duke with how well she could pick handcuffs behind her back by the time they were done. She won’t be bound for long. She starts to twist her wrists back and forth.

“What do you think Vince is going to do with her?” Riley asks Darren, catching Audrey’s attention. She hears genuine worry in Riley’s voice and it sends a chill up Audrey’s spine. There’s no love lost between her and Riley’s faction of the Guard. If Riley’s worried about her…

Darren’s voice is hard as he replies simply, “it won’t be enough.”

Riley is silent after that.

Audrey starts working harder on the ropes. What has Audrey Parker done in this version of Haven? That worries her more than anything Vince might think up.

They don’t drive for very long, Audrey’s gotten her bonds loosened almost enough to wriggle free of them when they turn onto a driveway and into a garage. She forces her hands to still knowing they could look back at any second.

They don’t.

“We still need her to end the Troubles,” Riley warns Darren as they get out of the truck.

Whatever Darren says in response is lost in the slamming of the door. They don’t come around to her immediately. She peeks and can see Riley’s dark ponytail, the plaid of Darren’s burly shoulder, they’re stopped, looking at something out of Audrey’s range.

“What are you doing here?” Darren asks, open hostility in his voice.

Audrey jolts, she didn’t hear anyone else come in. They must have been waiting in the garage.

“I’ll take her from here,” Dwight’s steady voice answers.

Audrey feels a surge of hope that she squashes quickly. There’s no reason for Dwight to be on her side under the influence of this Trouble. But at least he’s usually pretty reasonable and willing to listen. It’s what makes him such a good leader- though it seems like Vince is the leader of the Guard once more, in this version of Haven.

She watches through barely slitted eyes as Dwight comes into view and Riley heads for the door that leads from the garage into the house. Darren stays where he is.

“You two can go,” Dwight says pointedly.

“Won’t you need help carrying her?” Darren asks.

Audrey sees Dwight make an unimpressed face at Darren. In another situation she’d laugh. She’s so used to Dwight’s size and strength being an asset; it’s only now that she feels a real rush of fear.

Darren shrugs and goes into the house as well, shutting the door behind him.


	2. Spot the Difference

Dwight turns to the car and Audrey slams her eyelids shut.

The vial of aether in her pocket suddenly digs into her leg. Could she use it against Dwight? It’s a slippery slope. Healing her broken arm in hostile territory was one thing, turning the aether against the creatures from the Void, sure, but is she sincerely considering using aether against a person? A friend?

She hears the backdoor open and then nothing. The silence stretches like a rubber band drawn tighter and tighter.

“I know you’re awake,” Dwight finally says and Audrey can’t help it. She flinches. Her eyes open to find Dwight leaning down to peer through the open door of the truck. Then he does something surprising.

He smiles.

“It’s good to see you, Audrey,” he says, real warmth in his voice and something in Audrey’s chest unlocks.

“Good to see you too,” she answers, struggling to sit up. Dwight’s big hand closes around her shoulder and helps her to get vertical.

“Are you, you?” Audrey demands.

“Am I under the influence of this Trouble, you mean?” Dwight pulls a swiss army knife from his pocket and gestures for her to turn around so he can free her hands. “No.”

Audrey’s shoulders relax even before the denial. It’s a very Dwight move, giving her the choice to turn her back on him when he has a knife in his hands. She twists and in a moment the rope is hanging loose at her wrists.

“Thanks,” Audrey says as Dwight pockets the knife.

He gives her a smile then shuts the back door and hurries around to the driver’s side in that same ‘I am not running, but I am not _not_ running either’ stride that puts all Audrey’s hackles up.

“What is going on here?” Audrey demands, climbing from the back into the passenger seat as Dwight turns the key in the ignition. Dwight is trying to act like everything’s okay but Audrey can read the tension in his shoulders. She buckles her seatbelt. “Why did I just get kidnapped? How are you not affected by this Trouble?” Audrey rubs at the rope burn on her wrists gingerly, angry red lines. They’re worth it though to know she could have gotten away on her own.

Dwight doesn’t answer immediately, he beeps the garage door open and they back carefully out onto the driveway. Audrey sits impatiently and waits for them to turn onto the street. She prods gingerly at the lump on the back of her head. It’s not bleeding at least.

“So far it looks like all the people we cured aren’t affected. The ones who’ve gotten in touch with me anyway,” Dwight finally replies, making a left.

Audrey’s eyes widen in shock and Dwight glances her way and gives her a tight grin. She doesn’t understand. How can they be immune to this Trouble? There was nothing in the serum they gave them.

“Guess the crystal had more of a kick than even you knew,” he says, eyes flicking to the rearview mirror, checking to see if they’re being followed.

Audrey sits back and blows out a breath. “Guess so,” she says and glances down to check Dwight’s wearing his vest.

Dwight must follow her gaze because he nods. “It’s still off,” he assures her. “But I don’t need all of Haven knowing that with everything that’s going on.”

“What is going on?” Audrey repeats.

Dwight turns another corner and instead of answering nods. They’re passing the Good Shepherd Church. Outside is an enormous billboard plastered with her face. _I can cure your Troubles,_ it promises. Audrey blanches.

“What?”

She can’t manage more than that, her brain is totally unable to process this. She stares until they go past and then gets up on her knees to look back at the sign.

“Some people say this’s been going on for almost a year, others think a couple months since the barn brought you back, some only the last few weeks or days, but however long it’s been going on in their minds they all say the same thing.” Dwight hangs a right, calmly, as if his entire brain isn’t broken by that billboard. “Audrey Parker came to Haven and after a time she decided that helping the Troubled meant curing them of their Troubles. Story is the Troubles are responsible for the fog. When all the Troubles are cured the fog’ll lift. She’s got a set up at the Moonrise Point Lighthouse, got most of the HPD working for her, a lot of the Rev’s old followers. A lot of them are up there guarding the place, the rest… They go out rounding up the Troubled, bringing them to be cured. And by cured I mean have the aether ripped out of them through the eyes.” Dwight glances at her significantly. “No one’s survived so far,” he adds, unnecessarily.

Audrey sits back in her seat and takes that in. Oh, he’s clever, that bastard. She’ll give him that. Hurting people in her name is a low blow. If he thinks she’s going to go running to him and beg him to stop he’s got another think coming. He’s spent too much time in the Void if he thinks she’s going to cower and give in.

“It’s not safe walking the streets with your guard tattoo visible. They take you up there whether you’re Troubled or not,” Dwight continues. “McHugh told me they walked into Larissa’s the other day and made every person in there roll up their sleeves.” Audrey hears the anger in his voice and she feels it too. All this is being done in her name.

Thanks, Dad, she thinks sourly.

“How long has this really been going on?” she asks carefully.

“I’ve been here almost a whole day now. I was at the station working on curing Amanda Lattimer when suddenly I wasn’t.” Dwight shakes his head ruefully. “You’ve had to do this more than once?” he asks. “Deal with the world suddenly not being the right one?”

Audrey nods, thinking of Doctor Hansen and Detective Crocker.

“You have my sympathies,” Dwight says dryly.

Audrey chuckles despite the tight ball of worry and fear in her gut. It’s nice not having to convince someone that what’s happening isn’t what they think for once.

Dwight slows down, pulling the truck over on the shoulder. Audrey arches her eyebrows at him.

“Not safe in this,” he tells her, “too memorable. Everyone knows this is Darren’s truck. Got a man with another vehicle waiting out on Juniper. Gotta cut through these trees to get there,” Dwight nods to the swaying pines. They’re green, dark green and normal as can be. If palm trees are ubiquitous to the Caribbean, pine are ubiquitous to Maine but for a moment Audrey cannot force herself to get out of the car and walk through them.

Dwight gives her a curious look, half in, half out already.

Audrey unbuckles her seatbelt and gets out of the faded old red truck on determination alone.

“How many Troubled people have been killed?” Audrey asks because she needs to know and she needs something to distract her from the too-familiar sensation of hiking on uneven ground, pine trees silent and unyielding rising overhead. They’re _green_ , she keeps reminding herself.

“If this has really only been going on since yesterday then seven so far,” Dwight answers, and that gets her attention. Seven. He’s killed seven people just to get her attention. “Most of The Guard have been forced into hiding, Vince is losing his mind. He doesn’t know what to do. They still need Audrey Parker to end the Troubles but…” Dwight trails off.

Audrey nods. “What happens when he finds out you’ve stolen their kidnapped Audrey Parker?” she asks wryly.

Dwight laughs. “Nothing good I suppose. Which is why I’m hoping you have a plan to get Croatoan.”

Audrey sets her jaw and nods, feeling a breeze lift the ends of her hair. It smells cool and clean, no oily aether scent. The ground is firm, no squelching grey mud.

“You haven’t told me something yet,” she says quietly, desperately needing and fearing the answer. “Where’s Nathan? Where’s Duke?” she asks. She needs to know they weren’t any of the seven. She needs them to be safe.

Dwight sucks in a breath. “Duke’s dead, Audrey,” he says ever so gently. The sympathy on his face hurts. “Remember?” he adds and the relief that rushes in threatens to take her out at the knees. Dwight still thinks he’s dead because of their scheme at the station.

“Dwight,” she says, not sure what to tell him, really. Things are bad but they still don’t know who Croatoan might be using to spy for him. Though if it was Dwight, Audrey has the feeling she’d be in a lot more trouble now than she is. “Listen, I should tell you-” she begins.

“Actually, about that,” another voice says behind them, one Audrey knows so well.

“Duke!” She breathes, spinning. And there he is, stepping out from behind one of the trees. Audrey doesn’t think, she just flings herself at him, relief welling up strong and heady. Duke catches her with an “Oof!” staggering back on the uneven ground but they stay upright and he’s solid in her arms, warm and whole and _alive_. She hadn’t even realized how much tension she’d been carrying until it’s suddenly just gone, her knees weak with the release. Duke isn’t letting her go just yet so she doesn’t have to cover, just holds on, burying her face in his neck. He smells of sweat and gunpowder and the faint hints of Nathan’s soap. She struggles to blink back tears. _He’s fine._

“Good to see you too,” he murmurs against her temple, voice rough with emotion. His big hands are trembling as they stroke soothing lines up and down her back. _He was worried too._

Behind them Dwight clears his throat. Audrey pulls herself away but can’t let go. She switches her grip to Duke’s arm as she glances at Dwight.

“He already pulled the rumors of my demise line on me,” Dwight tells Audrey with an amused eye roll.

Duke laughs. “It’s a good line,” he protests.

“One you’ve already used twice. Let’s not go for a third,” Dwight warns, but there’s genuine concern in his voice. It surprises Audrey. She didn’t realize Duke and Dwight were on such good terms.

“This was a test!” She exclaims, rounding on Dwight.

Dwight has the good grace to look ashamed. “We had to make sure you were you,” he says simply. Audrey glances up at Duke who shrugs.

She laughs but she’s fully aware that they are in the middle of the woods, with no one around to hear her scream if she wasn’t who she said she was. She’s grateful she passed the test, but more grateful that she has these two walking point for the town.


	3. Sit Rep

“Where’s Nathan?” she asks Duke, peering behind him as if Nathan might be lurking behind one of the trees. “Are you hiding him too?” she jokes, but she’s got a sinking feeling he’s not.

“Audrey—“ Duke opens and closes his mouth and the bad feeling grows, spreads. Audrey never thought she’d meet anything that could render Duke speechless. Something cold settles in her stomach.

“Where is he?” she demands, clutching Duke’s hands, trying to think past the sudden pounding in her chest.

“He’s still under the influence of the Trouble,” Dwight supplies, looking apologetic, like a doctor giving bad news in the hospital. _Sorry ma’am we did all we could._

Audrey’s gaze swings from Dwight to Duke; he knows what she’s thinking. Nathan’s Trouble had been off. He shouldn’t be affected.

“He’s at the police department probably, that’s where I left him at least,” Dwight continues, drawing Audrey’s attention again.

“He’s not helping her is he?” Audrey demands. _He wouldn’t! He woul—_

“No! No.” Duke is quick to reply, running a hand down her arm.

“He went out there and tried to stop her when he first got thrown in here, as far as we can tell. That was maybe around six last night? She handed his ass to him. Had Montgomery and Bouchard drag him back to the station. You remember them, Audrey, they were some of the Rev’s strongest supporters on the force,” Dwight explains. Audrey nods. They’re both in their late forties, Montgomery’s built like a brick house. Solid.

“He’s in his office and while no one will say he’s a prisoner, I don’t think they’d let him leave if he got up and tried to,” Dwight adds.

“Why didn’t you guys go after him? Break him out?” _They all know he’s Troubled,_ goes unsaid but echoes between them. _What’_ s _to stop some overzealous bigot from hurting him to impress the fraud out at the lighthouse?_

Hurt flashes across Duke’s face, there and gone in a second.

“We tried, Audrey,” he tells her.

The reprimand falls softly but stings like a lash nevertheless. Of course they did. Audrey flushes.

“Too many people under the influence of this Trouble on the main floor,” Dwight answers, rational, all business.

Audrey bites her lip and nods. Of course there are.

“My sources say he’s holed up in his office drinking whiskey and pacing but he hasn’t made any effort to leave, either.”

Audrey takes in a breath and nods sharply, worry warring with common sense.

“He’s safe, Audrey. They’re under orders not to hurt him,” Dwight says and it sounds like he’s repeating himself. He probably went through this with Duke, she realizes with a start. Audrey squeezes Duke’s hand and gets a pulse in return.

“We’ll get him out,” Duke promises. “Tried twice but there were too many people coming and going and neither of us is exactly likely to go unnoticed at the PD but you—”

“I can walk right in and—“

“Too dangerous,” Dwight vetoes. “Vince’s guys at the PD aren’t going to let—“

“Dwight.” Audrey shakes her head. “It’s _Nathan_.” She stresses the name. He means too much to all of them to just leave him there.

“Audrey, he’s under the influence of this Trouble,” Dwight says gently, kindly. “He thinks Duke is dead and you’re up at the Lighthouse plotting genocide on the Troubled.”

That hurts. It does. But it doesn’t matter.

“I can reach him,” she tells Dwight with surety. He believed her _three_ separate times with Anson Shumway’s Trouble. She can reach him.

“Maybe, but could you reach him in the fifteen seconds it takes him to raise the alarm?” Dwight asks.

 _That_ gives Audrey pause. Even Duke looks torn.

“Look, I’m not saying we don’t try,” Dwight bargains. “I’m saying let’s just play it by ear before we tip our hand to Croatoan that the real Audrey Parker is on scene.”

Audrey knows her chin is set at a mutinous angle, her teeth are clenched on the argument she wants to make.

But Dwight makes sense.

Beyond that, it’s selfish to want Nathan with her on this mission. She knows that.

The rational part of her is glad he’s safe at the station because what she has to do will not be safe, not safe at all. Part of her wishes she could lock Duke up at the station as well. The other part though…Nathan’s been with her since she first came to Haven. It doesn’t feel right ending things without him.

“Besides,” Dwight adds. “We need to go to the station anyway.”

Audrey’s eyebrows go up almost as high as Duke’s.

“We’re gonna need weapons to take on the things in the woods if you’re going up to the lighthouse to stop Croatoan.”

Audrey lets out a sharp, startled bark of laughter that Duke echoes.

“See, Sasquatch, I knew you had it in you to lead a rebellion,” Duke chuckles, wagging a finger at Dwight.

Dwight smirks and inclines his head and they start walking again.

“Who exactly are we arming?” Audrey clarifies.

Duke and Dwight exchange a look.

Turns out Duke and Dwight have been rescuing known Troubled people and stashing them at safe houses in town, smuggling the high risk cases out to the Aldermere farm outside of town. It’s a pretty perfect spot, secluded, easily defended with the one way in, one way out and the gar in the backyard to eat the unaware. Duke had to leave his new toy there to keep them safe just in case, but the gar hasn’t gone anywhere near the house.

“We tried to get people out,” Dwight continues as another road comes into sight between the trees. “Got a group of Troubled folk together, including Carrie Benson and Cally Tyrol, but when Duke took them through the fog…”

“They forgot Haven just like everyone else and because of that, they forgot who they were.” Duke opens his mouth to continue, then closes it again and shakes his head. He meets Audrey’s gaze with apology in his eyes. “I couldn’t leave them out there unsupervised. It was dark and winter and the first town they came to they’d have taken them to the hospital.” Duke shakes his head again. “If Cally Tyrol made the machines stop working, or Carrie had a nightmare…” Duke shoves his hands through his hair, overwhelmed by the possibilities. Audrey knows that feeling, trying to balance it all, to keep everyone safe somehow.

“When I brought them back through they remembered everything, so there’s that at least,” he shrugs, shoulders hunched. He feels like he failed them, she realizes.

Audrey threads her fingers through Duke’s, squeezes his hand.

“Coulda been worse, they could’ve turned into pumpkins,” she jokes.

“Guess it’s a good thing you’re back and I can leave this up to the professionals,” Duke laughs.

“You’ve been curing Troubles, fighting void creatures, and wrangling Audrey and Nathan for years. Don’t think it gets more professional than that,” Dwight argues.

Audrey laughs and shoots Dwight a grateful look.

Duke’s smile is small and startled but genuine for a moment at the praise. Then he shakes his head. “No, I’m no hero. This is…I don’t know how you two do this every day. I didn’t sign up for this,” Duke sighs.

“Doesn’t mean you’re not getting it done,” Dwight replies with an arch of his brows, and then he’s gone, pressing ahead of them to get the new truck open.

Duke doesn’t say anything but he’s clearly moved by Dwight’s confidence in him. Audrey’s glad. He deserves to hear that he’s valued for what he’s done, for what he’s doing. He’s so much more than the pawn Croatoan thought he was. Audrey is flooded with relief once more. He’s alive. He’s _safe._

She pushes that feeling down and then realizes- she shouldn’t. Duke thinking she didn’t care was how she lost him in the first place.

She stops him at the edge of the woods with a hand on his arm.

He looks at her, eyebrows raised in mute question.

It’s such a Duke expression she can’t find words, overwhelmed with all the awful possibilities that didn’t happen. Instead she flings herself into his arms for the second time that day and pulls his head down, kisses him hard and fervent. Duke’s lips are soft against hers, gentling the kiss, pulling it back from desperate into something softer but no less eager. His hands are careful where they sweep down her back pulling her against him by her waist, fitting them together just so. There’s a fine tremor running through his muscles, she can feel it now that they’re so close, the same relief flooding her veins is sweeping through his.

“Did I mention I’m glad you’re okay?” she asks breathlessly when they pull apart.

“I’m getting that idea,” he teases, looking taken aback but pleased underneath that.

He cups her jaw in his big hand, thumb stroking softly over her cheekbone. Audrey closes her eyes, rubbing her cheek against his palm. His skin’s so warm. It always is. She turns her head and drops a kiss there, watching his face the whole time. He flushes, surprised and pleased and embarrassed. He moves in slow, telegraphing his intention, as if he’s still unsure of his welcome but his kiss isn’t hesitant, it’s warm and full of their relief, bubbling up and pouring out of him, bubbling up and pouring out of her. Audrey’s hands tunnel through his hair, the shorter strands at the back scratch softly across her palms as she does it again and again.

Duke rests his forehead against hers, their breaths mingling in the chill air.

“I thought that was it when I woke up and you were gone,” he whispers.

Audrey’s breath hitches in her chest. No jokes, no sarcasm, just genuine concern. She has to close her eyes and inhale long and deep.

“We’ll get Nathan back,” he promises before she can respond.

Audrey pulls back to look at him. She can see the guilt in his brown eyes, making her regret her outburst.

“We will,” she answers, her voice as sure and as steady as she can make it.

Dwight starts the engine and the moment is broken.

They both get into the backseat. It’s safer that way; neither of them needs to be spotted right now. Audrey can’t help but be a little bit glad- she slides close until they’re pressed hip to thigh, their laced hands resting in her lap. She’s not quite ready to let him go just yet.

They drive the familiar roads under a somber grey sky, the trees standing out even greener than usual against that dour backdrop. The road unfurls, an empty black curl, bordered by blue ocean and white capped waves. Audrey Parker never thought she’d have this feeling, the familiarity, the possessiveness, the comfort: these are _her roads_ and they all lead home. The whirr of the tires on the asphalt, the restless crash of the waves, they’re so familiar, and so much more precious than she realized.

All of it will be laid to waste if she doesn’t stop Croatoan, if she isn’t strong enough. There’s a red farmhouse capping the nearest hill like a cherry on a sundae. She imagines it shattering the way the spire of the church did when Van Richards tapped Vickie’s sketch what feels like forever ago.

Audrey looks away.

“So you never said, how did you and Duke meet up?” she asks Dwight.

“I saved him!” Duke says proudly.

“Well, now,” Dwight begins to protest.

“It’s okay Dwight, I know you haven’t thanked me yet because you don’t have the words to express your gratitude,” Duke says magnanimously, he leans back in his seat, spreads his arm along the back, cocky and pleased with himself.

Dwight glances at them in the rearview mirror and snorts. Audrey elbows Duke lightly in the side.

“Hey! Is that how you treat a hero?” Duke complains, rubbing at the spot.

“I’m sorry,” Audrey teases, “tell me about this daring rescue?” she prompts.

Dwight answers before Duke can. “Was on my way to the Sutcliffe estate, to look for you and Nathan. HPD cruiser pulled in behind me, lights on. I stopped to see what was wrong.”

“Four of them jumped him,” Duke says, voice solemn with an undercurrent of anger. “I was making my way back into town and I saw them, pulled over, distracted them with thrilling heroics—“

“He BS-ed them until I head-butted the guy closest to me,” Dwight corrects.

Duke spreads his hands as if to say ‘you see?’

Dwight rolls his eyes.

“Took out three of them, questioned the fourth. He’s the one who told us the story about the Audrey Parker up at the lighthouse.”

“Apparently, the fog wall is because of the Troubles,” Duke takes up the tale. “Once all the Troubles are ‘cured’,” he makes expansive finger quotes around the word, “the wall will disappear.”

Audrey leans back in her seat and lets out a breath. She’d hated Croatoan before but his tactics had been ham-fisted – offering her petty victories, making the town hate her- but this…it’s awful and clever, it’s a perfect way to entice Haven to turn in the Troubled. She’ll make him burn for this.

“We hid the cops and their car just in time,” Dwight continues, drawing Audrey’s attention from thoughts of vengeance, “another HPD car came careening around the corner. Three of my guys from the Guard cuffed in the backseat heading for the lighthouse.”

“What did you do?” Audrey asks.

“Followed ‘em of course,” Duke gives her a cheeky grin. “Right on up to the Moonrise Point lighthouse, which had been empty when I checked two hours before. Now, there’s a new ten foot tall wall around the property, four guys guarding the gate and a multitude of Void creatures in the woods. We found that out the hard way.”

“You climbed the wall?” Audrey asks.

“We climbed the wall,” Duke agrees.

“Once we were back on the side that wasn’t eager to eat us, we tried to figure another way around but before we could there was a disturbance up at the main building…” Duke hesitates here.

“They brought Nathan out in cuffs,” Dwight fills in and Audrey’s stomach goes heavy with dread.

“He wasn’t hurt,” Duke assures her, squeezing her hand. “He was cuffed but he wasn’t hurt,” he repeats and Audrey knows he’s saying it as much for himself as for her.

“We followed them back to HPD,” Dwight continues. “Tried to get to him but…”

Audrey gets the feeling there’s a lot they’re not telling her but she trusts them, and she knows Duke, knows the lengths Duke would go to, to help Nathan. She believes there was nothing else they could have done.

“He’s holed up in his office, first floor, we need to hit the armory in the basement,” Dwight outlines.

“And evidence lockup on the second floor,” Audrey adds. “There’s something in there we need to get out of reach of both Croatoan’s and Vince’s followers.”

Dwight’s eyes go wide in acknowledgement. “The aether ball you and Charlotte,” he only stumbles a little over the name, “gathered isn’t still in there is it?” he asks.

Beside Audrey, Duke squawks.

“It was the safest place before all…this,” Audrey gestures broadly to encompass all of Haven and the new Trouble.

“And after we get those?” Duke asks.

“Then we head on up to the lighthouse and see if I can’t mess up Croatoan’s day as much as he’s ruined mine,” Audrey says lightly.

Duke grins, even Dwight smiles.

“Gonna need backup,” Dwight notes.

“We know some Troubled folk who might be angry enough to take on a few creatures from the Void,” Duke says easily. “Won’t be enough though.”

Dwight grimaces. “Guess it’s time to talk to Vince.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments, dear Readers, they make my day and make me excited to post more :)


	4. Is It Really Stealing If It’s To Save the World?

So a lot of you probably watched this 5B trailer and got really excited, like me, and then 5B had none of these things. Well, it does now :) 

 

Dwight calls Vince from his cellphone. It goes about as well as Audrey expected. Vince refuses to believe the Audrey at the lighthouse isn’t the real Audrey. She takes the phone from Dwight and he threatens her, outright. Audrey is amazed and more than a little taken aback. In the end, he refuses to move on the lighthouse, refuses to help them, and Audrey doesn’t even have the satisfaction of slamming the phone down in his ear.

Unluckily for Vince, he let slip he has his own plans for storming the lighthouse. So really, they just need to find a way to up his timetable.

Duke grins, wide and wicked. “I’ve got it covered,” he assures them.

When Audrey Parker looks at the red bricks of the Haven Police Department the feeling that swells in her chest means ‘home’. She can’t remember ever belonging anywhere else like she has here. Here her co-workers accepted her, didn’t refer to her as Spooky Jr. Here her work was valued. Got a Trouble? Call in Audrey, she can fix it. She’s made friends here; Stan, Rebecca, Laverne. People she might call if her car wouldn’t start and she needed a ride. Maybe the other overlays had their own ideas of home, but for Audrey this is all she knows. This is where she comes when the nightmares get too real. This is where she comes when she has a problem to solve.

Croatoan’s taken that from her. He’s made her unwelcome in her own home. This is her place; she’s fought and bled for it.

She won’t be unwelcome for much longer.

He’s _not_ taking anything else.

She’s done letting him try.

Still, it burns having to sneak into the station. They enter through the annex; it was damaged badly during the first few days of the new Troubles, and even when it was in working order they mostly used it for long term evidence storage. With Maine winters being what they are, there’s a very convenient tunnel that connects the two buildings underground. The armory is in the basement- ammunition and guns, battering rams and riot gear, it’s all thrown haphazardly around the large room. No one’s cleaned up or organized it since the new Troubles first hit. Now it’s up to Duke and Dwight to find what they can for their makeshift army.

They start filling boxes, arguing quietly over what to take and how they’re going to get everything out to the truck.

“Sure you don’t have an invisibility Trouble we could trigger?” Dwight teases Duke. Audrey’s eyebrows lift in alarm but Duke just rolls his eyes. She grins; who knew all it would take to make those two get along would be the entire world ganging up on them?

She doesn’t hear whatever they say next as she slips into the stairwell, Dwight’s HPD cap pulled low over her face, her hair bundled up underneath it.

Her goal is the second floor, evidence lock up. The stairway is empty now but anyone could come in at any minute. She still pauses at the door to the main floor, listening to the voices beyond it, listening for Nathan. She stands still for a long moment, her hand on the metal of the handle. Just one push and she’d be on the right floor, a couple steps and she’d be in his office. It’s too risky. She can feel the door swinging under her fingers, feel the wooden station floor under her boots, imagines throwing herself into Nathan’s arms, warm and wiry as they wrap around her.

He’s in there by himself, thinking he’s lost both of them, maybe that he never had Duke to begin with. Thinking that she’s turned against the Troubled, against him. Thinking that the whole town is against him. The thought of Nathan so alone takes Audrey’s breath away. He doesn’t even have Dwight on his side.

Audrey pushes herself up the second flight of stairs. The sooner they get Croatoan, the sooner they can rescue Nathan, she tells herself sternly.

She puts her ear to the door on the second floor but can’t hear anything. That’s a good sign. There’s nothing up here but files, the IT kid Curtis’ station, and evidence lockup. There’s no reason for anyone to be in evidence lockup. Her passkey beeps incredibly loudly when she uses it to open the door. Her heart is pounding like machine-gun fire in her ears. She punches in the code to the locker with trembling fingers.

The room is full of shelves and dimly lit by rows of fluorescent bulbs that create more shadows than they erase. As always there’s that musty smell of old boxes quietly rotting away. Audrey heads for the middle of the room, down the fifth row of shelves, the second shelf from the bottom. She crouches and pries out the battered envelope from between an old box and a pair of boots, size nine, with liberal blood spatter on the side.

The instant it’s in her hands the aether inside calls to her through the thin paper. It buzzes like a hive inside her mind, so close, so willing to respond to her every command. She could use it here and now, bend all these mortal fools to her will, make them rise up against Croatoan the same way he’s made them turn on her. The possibilities weave around her heart, insidious and so full of good intentions.

 _No,_ she answers herself, shaky and a little scared but determined.

_No, I won’t stoop to his level._

_Not unless you have to,_ a small voice adds.

Audrey grits her teeth because she would go there, she would use the aether on everyone if she had to, if it comes down to a choice between using the aether and letting him take over the town.

She won’t let it come to that, she promises herself.

She folds the envelope over, tucking it into her jacket pocket and zipping it closed. The core is a solid, round weight, barely the size of a tennis ball. If she hadn’t helped Charlotte to make it she never would have believed how much aether it contains.

Audrey exits the evidence lockup as quickly and quietly as she’d come. The hallway is empty, the door to the stairwell is twelve steps away. There’s a light flickering from the cracked door to the IT room. _The cameras!_ They must have finished installing them. There’s no one manning them because Jade Curtis is Troubled and has probably fled the station.

Audrey slips into the room and pulls the door closed behind her. The twenty-eight inch monitor that the Chief groused about buying for two months straight is on and running, split into eight boxes. The cameras are directed at the three doors to the station, the main bullpen, and the four interrogation rooms, people coming and going like a nest of busy ants. Nathan isn’t in any of them.

Aiden Driscoll sits in tears in interrogation room four. The new reverend who replaced Ed Driscoll stands in judgment over him, hands planted on the table like every bad rendition of every bad cop on a tv show ever.

There’s no one playing good cop in there.

Even as she watches, the monitor switches cameras. These show the inside of the offices on the main floor.

Heart in her throat, she perches on the edge of the chair, fingers blindly finding the mouse. There in the bottom right corner of the screen is Nathan in his office. He’s sitting at his desk, thumbing his badge and staring blankly at the wall.

The tightness in her chest eases at the sight of him. Duke and Dwight had told her he was okay but there’s nothing like seeing it with her own eyes.

He’s fine. He’s got a shiner over his right eye but nothing looks broken.

Audrey clicks the square and his image fills the screen. Her breath hitches.

He looks… he’s got his brooding face on: brows drawn, lips pursed. There’s a half-empty bottle of whiskey on the desk. Audrey wonders if he knows there’s a camera in the office. She hadn’t realized they were putting them in there herself.

The door to his office opens. Gloria walks in and sits heavily in the visitor’s chair. Nathan barely glances at her. She takes a swig from the open bottle of whiskey without asking. Nathan doesn’t say a word, his eyes flitting back to the empty spot on the wall. Gloria sets the whiskey bottle down hard. She squares her shoulders as if readying herself for battle.

“Enough is enough,” she tells Nathan, her voice crackling and tinny through the mic attached to the camera. It still makes Audrey jump. Apparently selecting one video stream brings the audio online too. She turns the volume on the speakers as low as she can to avoid detection, but she can’t bring herself to turn them off, can’t bring herself to get out of the chair just yet.

Nathan glances up at Gloria sharply. His image is too grainy for Audrey to see his eyes but he looks drawn, like someone who’s been sick for a long time.

“You’ve been in here for days,” Gloria scolds, and while Audrey knows this isn’t true, Nathan and Gloria think it is. “You’ve been letting her tear this town apart. The police are no better than thugs right now, and the Rev’s people are even worse. They went into the supermarket on Elm Street and ripped off Dan McLeary’s sleeve to check he didn’t have the Guard symbol. They’re all jumping at their shadows. It’s not just the Troubled who are being affected, it’s the whole town, while you sit in here wallowing in your self-pity. Enough is enough, Cheekbones. Your dad wore that badge and he kept this town safe. If you’re not going to live up to it then you don’t deserve it.”

“What am I supposed to do?” Nathan asks, his voice hoarse like he hasn’t used it in hours. It shakes with the emotion he isn’t letting out anywhere else. “What do you want me to do?”

“Something!” Gloria slams her hand on the table. “This isn’t right! This isn’t Audrey!”

“It is.” Nathan corrects, his voice dull with finality. “Croatoan’s her father. Of course she’d side with him.” Nathan takes a slug from the bottle and Gloria slaps it out of his hand. It goes careening across his desk. Nathan reaches across complacently to right it while Gloria continues to rage.

“Audrey Parker worked her ass off to save the Troubled! She’d never agree to the murder of them like this!”

“I always liked you,” Audrey whispers to the screen, touched by Gloria’s faith in her.

Nathan snorts. “You tell her that then. She’s not listening to me.” He gestures to the bruise blooming over his right eye.

“You gotta make her,” Gloria insists. “I know you can do it.”

Nathan shrugs and settles his shoulders back in his chair, dismissing her without a word.

“We both know there’s something wrong with her. A Haven thing probably,” Gloria argues, getting to her feet, looming over the desk. “He’s making her or he’s brainwashed her, damnit!” She slams her hand down on it in emphasis.

Nathan shakes his head, bitter despair soaking his words. “She chose this.” He looks up at Gloria, expression going lost. “He gave her back her memories. All of them.” Audrey shudders hard at the thought. Her memories. He could do that? “She remembers all of it,” Nathan spits, gaze going back to the bottle. He wraps his hand around the neck, spinning it idly. “She remembers him, she chose him. He’s her family. She told me so herself.” And that hurts, it _hurts_ to think Nathan could be swayed like that, even through a Trouble. She wouldn’t. She couldn’t. Even if Croatoan had been the father of the freaking year she would never have chosen him. Not after all he’s done. Never. He must have used a lot of power to get Nathan to believe that, believe it so fiercely that he’s sitting here licking his wounds while his town is under siege.

“So what?” Gloria continues, “Just forget the last two years? Forget how hard she’s fought for this town? She can’t mean that, Nathan! You’re just going to let her do that? You’re going to let her become this monster?”

Audrey appreciates Gloria’s faith in her, especially since Gloria is definitely under the effects of this Trouble, but she does not need her winding Nathan up to go back out and face off with Croatoan.

There’s a noise from outside; Audrey holds her breath listening hard, staring at the strip of light under the door. She waits but the noise doesn’t come again. Must’ve come from downstairs she decides.

When Audrey looks back to the cameras to set it back on the split screen she finds Gloria exiting the office. Audrey can’t turn it off, watching as Nathan sits in his chair, staring at the wall as blankly as before Gloria came in. He looks so lost. Audrey’s heart goes out to him.

Nathan shifts and picks up a file after a long moment. Audrey should leave. It’s not safe. Duke and Dwight are probably done with their mission. Nathan drops the file onto his desk then he sweeps the whole pile onto the floor in a rage. He jumps up and with a sharp jerk he launches everything off the top of the filing cabinet, sends the papers rustling angrily to the floor, then flings his badge after it into the corner.

Audrey turns back to the original feed before she can see anymore, her heart heavy.

She’s going to fix this.

She will.

Before she can leave she spots Duke on the split screen of the cameras. He’s running his hands along the walls of the hallway that leads to the room she’s in, his palms coated with flames like a pair of gloves. He wears it comfortably so Audrey fights down the rush of alarm. He must have learned a few tricks while she was out. He drags his palm down the wall like a kid trailing his hand along a fence and Audrey smiles and rolls her eyes. Ever the showman, Duke Crocker, even if it’s just for himself.

Duke stops in the middle of the hall and puts both palms up; he considers for a moment; obviously thinking about what will create the biggest reaction. He smirks to himself and raises his hands again, the flames sparking brighter, real fire now trickling over his fingers. Duke puts his hands to the wall and starts to draw. The flames go out as soon as Duke’s hands move away from them. He keeps going and it’s almost like he’s calling the design out of the drywall rather than burning it in.

Audrey leans forward toward the screen trying to make out the shape. It’s…he’s drawing the Guard symbol, burning it into the wall! She laughs as it spreads, huge and black against the beige of the wall. It’s perfect! It will put all the pressure on Vince and the Guard for the missing aether and weapons once word gets out. Audrey can’t imagine that won’t force them all up to the lighthouse; sooner rather than later.

It’s petty to be smug over getting Vince to do what she wants but she’s fine with being petty.

Finally Duke steps back and grins at his work as the flames on his hands die out.

Audrey checks the other cameras once more and then slips out to join him. She finds him still grinning at his creation.

“Where’d you learn that trick?” she asks quietly and he jumps.

“Jesus, Audrey,” he breathes, “don’t sneak up on a guy whose hands were just on fire!”

“I’ll take that under advisement,” she says with a smile.

“It’s one of the Troubles you woke up, I’m not sure which family it came from,” he explains.

Audrey nods sobering quickly. Of course.

Duke must read her expression because he redirects immediately. “Ready to get out of here?”

Audrey squares her shoulders; now isn’t the time to deal with it so she takes a breath and nods. “We’ve got a megalomaniac to destroy, how could I say no?” she answers.

Duke smiles and gestures her ahead of him. They slip into the stairwell. On the first floor they both hesitate. Audrey saw for herself on the monitors the bullpen was crowded with cops and church-goers. They can hear the muted chatter from behind the door. There’s no way they’d make it across to Nathan’s office without being seen.

She and Duke exchange worried looks. They’re both thinking the same thing – he’s so alone.

“At least he’s safe, for now,” she says and her voice is so steady she amazes herself.

Duke reaches for her hand nevertheless, squeezes her fingers gently. It helps to know he feels it too, feels how wrong it is to end this without Nathan. Still, it’s safer to leave Nathan here, let him come up in the second wave once people have found the symbol. It was a great idea. It’ll get the HPD all riled up, enough to bring more Troubled out to the lighthouse, and it will let the Guard know they’re needed as well.

Audrey hopes the Troubled folk they’re bringing will be able to fight off the Void creatures Croatoan’s brought with him. She has a feeling she’ll be too busy to help with any of that.


	5. Gathering the Troops

They rendezvous with Dwight at the truck and then it’s stop after stop to safe houses around town. It’s all rooms full of scared faces brightening when they spot Duke and Dwight. It’s all hushed conversations and people seeking reassurance.

It’s not just Dwight they’re seeking it from either, just as many faces turn to Duke. She watches him give them that reassurance, watches him charm townsfolk, a hand on a shoulder, a joke to lighten the tension, a nod to Audrey where she’s standing. The hope on their faces when they spot her is painful, daunting. Can she live up to all their expectations? Can she fix this? She’s got no choice but to try. Still it’s good to see respect and admiration aimed at Duke, all these people who are looking to him to help them. It’s a big step up from being  _ The Crocker _ the Troubled whisper about.

He’s good with them too, in ways Audrey never could be. She’s blunt and direct, which works well in high intensity situations, but to convince a frightened civilian to face down monsters? Duke’s easy charm and Dwight’s quiet sincerity are much better suited. Audrey is so grateful to have them on her side.

Despite Duke and Dwight’s best efforts, not everyone is willing to volunteer, not everyone who’s willing has skills that would be useful. The handful they do gather will split up and arrive at the lighthouse in small groups at staggered times. It wouldn’t do to caravan through town and alert everyone what they’re up to.

At each stop they get asked “What’s the plan?” Each time Audrey just encourages them to take out the monsters in the woods and to try to subdue the townsfolk without damaging anybody permanently. It may not happen that way, but they can try. She tries not to freak out that she herself doesn’t have a plan beyond ‘take Croatoan out.’

They leave town on a route that takes them along mostly the same drive Audrey took from the Gull each morning. They pass the market and the gazebo, the art supply store, the pretty blue house on the corner of Elm she’s always kind of wanted to buy for herself. She watches her town slip by and wonders if she’s ever going to see it again. When she looks over, Duke isn’t taking his last looks at their town. He’s studying her.

He’s got his resolved face on. The one that says _ I hate this idea but I’m going to propose it anyway. _ The ball of dread that’s been building in Audrey’s stomach expands. She’s never been good at lying to herself. The awful truth has always had a way of coming out so what was the point? She and Duke are alike in that way.

“You need a way to hold him,” he tells her quietly.

That’s not something she’s unaware of.

“It’s got to be me.”

“Duke—“ she begins and doesn’t know what to say after that. Oh wait, yes she does. “No.”

“Audrey—“

“No.” she says it louder, firmer. “I’m not letting you go all black-eyed, Crocker Trouble turned up to twelve. No. There’s got to be another way.” Why hasn’t she found another way yet? She helps the Troubled right? Why can’t she help Duke? It shouldn’t have come to this!

Duke gives her a sad little smile. “It’s got to be me, Audrey. Nothing else has a chance. If you start this you’re going to need a way to keep him from throwing a Trouble or disappearing until you’re done.”

“Duke,” she says again, helplessly. He’s right. He’s right. Deep down it was the first thing she’d thought of, but how could she ask that of him? She’d be no better than Croatoan if she asked that of him. Just using Duke like a tool. She’d promised him she’d do better than that. She’d promised herself. 

He deserves better than that.

“I can’t ask you to do that,” she tells him - pleads, really, and Audrey Parker doesn’t plead. This is putting Duke on a platter to be sacrificed. She’s never been good at that. Five hundred years and she’s never been able to make that choice. “I can’t, Duke.”

Duke shakes his head, eyes blessedly brown and willfully determined. “You’re not. I’m telling you, Audrey: this is what I’m going to do. I want him gone as much as you do.” She doesn’t doubt that, not after the Void, but that’s exactly why she can’t. 

“Look,” he says, pretending he’s being reasonable, “even William was scared when I went all black eyed.”

“And William used the aether in your veins to yank you around like a goddamn puppet!” she snaps. She bites back the next sentence about the way Croatoan controlled him because she’s not cruel enough to throw that in his face but the knowledge sits heavily between them.

Duke shrugs it off, grins wide and full of bravado. “That’s where I’m counting on you to be the one pulling my strings first,” he says casually, like it means nothing. Like he isn’t offering to put his free will in her hands.

“Duke…” Audrey sucks in a breath. “No.” This is… “That’s too much.”

“Audrey,” Duke reaches out and tucks his fingers under her chin. His hand is warm and steady as he lifts her gaze to meet his own. “We both know this is how it goes down,” he tells her softly, sadly, and if he had been cocky Audrey could have turned him down. If he had been glib or made a joke, Audrey would have flat out said no. But he didn’t. He’s serious. He’s thought this through.

“What if I can’t hold you and pull the aether from him at the same time?” she says quietly, plaintively. Why isn’t there another way? Why does it always come down to Duke on the line for them?

“Then Dwight here’ll knock my ass out and you’ll try something else. He’s been gunning for me since I knocked him off my boat that time,” Duke answers, with a nod to Dwight who has been listening to their conversation without comment in the front seat.

Dwight huffs a laugh. “I do owe you one,” he tells Duke. 

Audrey laughs too because what else can she do? She leans her head on Duke’s shoulder and closes her eyes. She feels like a little kid on the way to the doctor. It’s all out of her hands for now. This is happening whether she wants it to or not. She’s got to do her part. 

Duke’s arm comes up to wrap around her shoulders, tucking her into his side. He drops his chin on her head, kisses her hair. It’s such a soft gesture it almost breaks Audrey. She turns and goes up on her knees so she can grasp his chin and pull his gaze to hers. 

“If we’re doing this then there are some things you need to hear,” she tells him, deadly serious. 

Duke gives her a surprised look but she has his attention now. 

“I know you, Duke Crocker. You are not a monster,” she tells him firmly, watching his eyes go wide. His mouth opens to say something, to protest maybe but she shakes her head, fixes him with a look. She’s saying this. He needs to know all of this before they do anything else.

“You are a gentle, tender man,” the words come out shaky and wet just when she doesn’t want them to. She needs him to hear this because he is. “You talk a good game,” she tells him, “self-interest and looking out for number one and you don’t understand why everyone thinks you want to help?” Audrey laughs. “It’s ridiculous the number of people you fooled with such embarrassingly bad lies.”

“Hey, now,” Duke admonishes, trying to muster up  _ offended _ .

Audrey rolls her eyes. “But when you think no one’s looking you hire the kid with the sob story, and you give your waitress a break when she has family issues and you bring Nathan lukewarm coffee so he doesn’t burn his tongue.” 

Duke opens his mouth again, definitely to protest now, but he has, he’s done all those things so Audrey steamrolls right over him. 

“I noticed,” she tells him firmly. “I saw it.” And she did. She’s seen him. She’s always seen him. “I see you, Duke. I’ve watched you put yourself in danger, put yourself at risk of losing the thing you prize most - and no, not money, no one’s falling for that one,” she says before he can make the quip himself. He bites his lip in chagrin. “Your self-control. That’s what you value most of all.” His brows go up in surprise. She’s read him right. She always has. “And you did it all not out of a quest for power, or the high of the Crocker Curse. You did it because people could get hurt if something wasn’t done and you could do it. So you did. You-” her voice breaks again but she’s not done. “You don’t want to hurt people, Duke,” she croaks. He doesn’t. It’s not fair. He deserves to be allowed to be kind and giving and not have to fight tooth and nail every damn minute of every damn day!

Duke is for once, speechless; he actually looks a little overwhelmed but he puts his hand up over hers. 

“Audrey,” he shakes his head. “It’s okay,” he tells her and Audrey realizes he’s still trying to comfort her. 

“But it’s not!” she insists, hot tears filling her eyes. 

Duke’s brown eyes crease in sympathy and he strokes a hand over her hair. “Audr-”

“No!”

She doesn’t want him to comfort her here. She wants him to demand they let him run away through the fog wall again, to get angry, anything besides this resigned to his fate mien he’s donned. She thinks of his face, pale and drawn and defeated when he heard about the Rouge; he hadn’t raged then either. He’d accepted it like it was no more than he deserved. 

“Listen to me, Duke,” she gets up on her knees on the seat, both hands on his cheeks, willing him to hear this. “All of the things you’ve done, all of the things you’ve had to do, all of the things that this town and the Troubles put you through, you didn’t deserve them, Duke.” She swears it. He blanches at her words, surprise and guilt, relief and consternation flashing across his face in quick succession. “You didn’t deserve them and if you’re doing this out of some misguided idea that you need to be punished or you deserve to—”

“Hey, no,” Duke pulls her hands away from his face and kisses her fingers. “Listen to me, Audrey,” he gives her hands a little shake. “All that, everything- all those things, everything I’ve been through,  _ we’ve _ been through...  Croatoan did that.”  He stresses the words, gives them weight, intensity. “Croatoan made the Crocker line what we are. Hell, he even made Mara what she was.” 

They both hesitate here, a world of unspoken words between them before Duke pushes on. 

“I need this to be over. Just as much as you do. As long as he’s alive, I could end up a prisoner in my own head.” They both know the horror of what that’s like now.  “I don’t want to live like that, Audrey, I- I won’t. And you, this, it’s my best shot at finishing this. Finishing him. Every other time my Trouble’s been pushed, it hasn’t been my choice- but I get to choose this, Audrey. I get to choose to use my trouble to help end this. For you, for me, for everybody he’s screwed over. Five hundred years is enough. He doesn’t get to take any more from us.  Not Troubles, not Nathan, not this town. We’re ending this. By any means necessary.”

Audrey has never seen Duke as fierce or as serious as he is in this moment. His face is set, his fingers steady as they grip hers. She takes a breath and gets a hold of herself. If he can be as collected about this as he is, then she can too.

“I won’t let him take you,” she promises as fiercely as she can.

“But we end this tonight,” he repeats.

“We end this tonight,” she agrees.

They spend the rest of the drive with their fingers locked together, Audrey’s head on Duke’s shoulder, Duke’s cheek pressed to her temple. Audrey draws strength from his grip. She hopes he’s drawing strength from hers.

“Nathan’s gonna be so mad we left him out of this,” Duke offers after a few long moments of silence.

Audrey’s laugh comes out too close to a sob. “He really is,” she agrees.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a favourite part? line? Why not let me know? <3


	6. The Broadcast

Their last stop is the Aldermere farm. Dwight’s guys are there, McHugh and a dozen others Audrey recognizes as being members of The Guard. They load the guns Dwight and Duke ‘borrowed’ from the station into trunks and truck beds. All told they have maybe forty people on their side. Seventeen with Troubles that will be useful. It’s not a lot. Far less than they need.

Helplessness and despair threaten to swamp Audrey as she considers the force they’re up against.

“This would be an excellent time for Vince to get his head out of his ass,” Duke observes as Dwight pulls away from the farm. They’re not far from the lighthouse, a twenty minute drive at most. If they’re going to get reinforcements now is the time.

Audrey’s gaze catches on the radio attached to the dashboard.

She grabs the handset, pulling it by the cord between the two front seats.

“Audr-”

“What are-?”

“Laverne?” she asks into the mic and waits, heart pounding in her temples.

“Detective Parker,” comes the cool response.

“Laverne, I’m disappointed you’d think that’s really me up at the lighthouse. You know I like to save committing genocide for the weekend,” Audrey chides, soft and teasing.

There’s silence on the other end for long moments. Finally there’s a gruff snort.

“Are you telling me that someone’s Trouble created a homicidal Audrey Parker?” Laverne asks, voice bone dry.

“Essentially…” Audrey agrees.

Laverne sighs heavily into the handset. “Thank goodness, Audrey, Sugar, I was really starting to get worried here.”

Audrey grins and closes her eyes, tips her head back and takes a deep breath.

“I need a favor, Laverne,” she says.

“What is it?”

“I need you to broadcast my next transmission on as many frequencies as you can.”

“Whatever you need, Sugar,” Laverne agrees.

Audrey ignores Duke and Dwight’s curious looks.

She takes a deep breath and reminds herself: _You’ve got this. Done this a hundred times before._

She presses the button and finds her lips frozen.

She lets go of the button and takes another deep breath. She feels the weight of Duke and Dwight’s gazes keenly.

“Whenever you’re ready, hon,” Laverne encourages.

Nathan, she tells herself, picturing him on the grainy black and white camera, sitting in his office drowning in despair. Talk to Nathan. She hopes he has his radio on.

“My name is Audrey Parker,” she says clearly into the handset. “I help the Troubled.” Audrey takes a deep breath again, yes, that’s who she is. This is what she does. Calm settles over her. She’s found it, the eye of the storm, the place where she can _think_ even with hell and damnation raining all around her.

“Many of you might think I mean killing the Troubled and taking what makes them special out of them. That’s not what I do. You all know about the Troubles now. We’ve all seen the amazing, terrifying things they can do. Someone is using a Trouble to convince you that they’re me, to convince you to turn on each other and turn the Troubled in. Don’t.  Don’t believe him.”

The green of the farm fades to wintry browns and greys as Audrey talks and Dwight drives. The sun is setting behind them as they head towards the coast. Audrey imagines people around town hearing her voice, crackling and thin as it comes out of their radios.

“He wants you to think that the Troubled are your enemy, that the Troubles are what’s wrong with this town. We all know that’s not true. The Troubled are just people.. And none of them, not one of them asked to be the way they are, any more than you asked for brown eyes or red hair or to suck at baseball. The Troubled are people, flawed and talented and just as scared as you. They are not your enemy.

“Haven has one enemy; you might know him as the No Marks Killer but his name is Croatoan.” Those empty blue eyes flash before her mind. Fear shivers itself down her spine images of destruction, death, the creeping blackness of aether swamping the town. “He wants the Troubled. He wants to take out what makes them special, and he doesn’t care that that means killing them. The Troubled are the cereal box, and all he wants is the prize inside.

“He wants the Troubled and he doesn’t care that they’re _your_ neighbors, _your_ friends, _your_ coworkers, the guy who knows _your_ secrets from third grade, the woman who always gets stuck at the same light as you on _your_ Monday morning drive to work.” Audrey stresses each ‘your’, drives the point home. Who do they belong to? She wants every person listening to her thinking about that.

“He doesn’t understand that the Troubled are _people_. That they’re _ours_. _Our_ people.” She’s seen for herself that Mainers are nothing if not territorial; they don’t like outsiders, they band together. “They’re from Haven. They’re as much a part of Haven as the bluffs and the sea. He doesn’t understand that Haven protects her own.” It’s true. Haven works hard to protect its people. The fact that it’s been five hundred years and no one outside of Haven has discovered the Troubles is proof enough of that.

“What we’ve been through...  We’ve been through Troubles on a scale we’ve never faced before. We’ve worked together through all of it, Troubled and un-Troubled alike. We’ve kept the power on and water running, we’ve kept each other fed, kept each other safe.” Audrey can only hope to trigger the memories of these things by bringing them up. “Croatoan wants you to forget that, wants you to forget the names and faces of these people who have Troubles, who are more than just their Troubles.  He wants you to forget that these are our _neighbors_ , our _families_. He wants to make the Troubled out to be monsters, and they’re not. They’re people. Our people. He doesn’t care about Haven. He’ll lay the whole town to waste if it means getting what he wants. He’s already trying. The monsters you’ve seen, they’re all his creations. He’s set them loose in our town and they don’t care if you’re Troubled or not. He’s our real enemy. He is the threat we need to face, not each other.”

“He thinks he can make us scared of our own neighbors, that he can get us to just- give up and let him take our town, when we won’t even let the summer people take our parking spots? Enough is enough. I’m telling him, I am telling all of you- no more. Haven is my home. It’s your home too. I’m willing to fight for it and if I’m the only one then so be it.” And she would. She would fight for this town on her own if she had to. “But I’m betting I’m not.”

Duke squeezes her hand gently. She smiles and squeezes his hand back. She’s not.

She ends the broadcast with directions to the lighthouse, warnings of what they might find, a plea to subdue the Troubled working with Croatoan instead of killing them and finally, “be careful. Look out for each other. We’re all we’ve got.”

Dwight nods his head, glances at her in the rear view mirror and smiles.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> You guys Haven was Audrey Parker's story first, before Nathan, before Duke, before Dwight it was _Audrey_ we followed driving into this quaint little town and _Audrey_ we followed trying to discover if the woman in the picture was her mother and yet _Dwight_ got to give a speech to the town? _Nathan_ got to give a speech to the town? and _Audrey_ didn't? I was so mad you guys. So so soooooo mad. So yeah, this chapter was born because fuck that.
> 
> Got a fav part? line? I'd love to hear about it. :)


	7. The Lighthouse

The road veers away from the trees and follows the coast. The sun is almost completely set. A strange purple twilight collects on the roiling clouds of the fog wall far out at sea. The wind buffets the car so Dwight clenches his fingers on the wheel. The waves are just as angry, slamming themselves against the cliffs, huge swaths of white foam spraying high into the air. They round a bend and the Moonrise Point lighthouse comes into view. It sits at the edge of a finger of land, a straight white tower with a pretty cottage at the base. It looks a lot like Croatoan’s lair in the Void.

Audrey glances at Duke. His grim expression tells her he sees it too.

The white wall blocking off the lighthouse is visible even from this distance; it spans the width of the peninsula. Dwight parks off the road and rolls the SUV behind a line of bushes to give it some cover. Up the road they can see a few HPD cars and a few unmarked vehicles parked close to the lighthouse. Her own personal Voldemort has a full house of Death Eaters tonight.

That’s not fair to them, not really. She knows they’re all under the effect of this Trouble.

Audrey steps out of the truck, and it feels like stepping out into those long moments before a storm, the air heavy with anticipation. It feels like something big is coming. This is it, Audrey thinks looking at the wall and beyond it the lighthouse.

Dwight stays with the truck; he’ll coordinate reinforcements as they come. He’s armed head to toe, including a rifle and his crossbow, with the back of the truck filled with enough weapons for a _Guns and Ammo_ centerfold. It’s unsettling to see him with the rifle. Audrey’s fingers twitch with the urge to snatch it from him but she keeps her hands to herself. He’s as safe with the rifle as can be. Safer, really. Croatoan will pull in as many of the Void creatures as he can to defend himself once he knows they’re there. Dwight’s going to need as much firepower as he can get.

“Good luck,” Dwight offers, clasping Audrey’s shoulder with a big hand.

Audrey hugs him. “Thank you,” she whispers, she means for everything but the lump in her throat won’t let her add that. This could very well be the last time she sees him.

Dwight and Duke shake hands and exchange nods. There’s understanding there between them, camaraderie they hadn’t shared before.

And then it’s time.

Audrey and Duke make their way on foot through the trees on the side of the road. Audrey has the aether ball tucked into her HPD backpack. She’s got a service weapon at her hip and her back up gun at her ankle. Duke is similarly kitted out.  The plan is to take advantage of the thin stretch of beach at the base of the cliffs to come up behind the lighthouse rather than face the monsters in the woods bordering it.

All of that gets thrown out the window when the Bronco roars past them on the road up to the lighthouse

Audrey and Duke stop and exchange horrified looks. They start running even as the truck rams into the gates with an unholy shriek of bending metal. The gates give way, toppling with a violent clang but Nathan doesn’t stop there, he revs the engine and keeps going straight on up to the lighthouse. They hear him slam the door of the truck. The silence afterward echoes eerily. The only noise left is the never ending roar and crash of the ocean battering the shore.

Audrey doesn’t remember the run from the gates up to the lighthouse. She knows nothing stopped them; maybe everything big and toothy had been drawn to the main building by Nathan’s arrival, or maybe they were just lucky. She remembers Duke’s hand on her arm at the start, tense fingers tugging her into the trees rather than up the main path. She doesn’t remember how they avoided stumbling in the dark. She does remember the awful glowing Spidren web she and Duke skirted. The thing had been as long as a volleyball net, stretching six trees wide. Beyond that all she really remembers is the wind, cold on her cheeks and the frantic thudding of her heart in time with her heels.

 _Don’t hurt him.Don’t hurt him. Don’t hurt him._ She begs, who she’s not sure- Croatoan, the people under his thrall, the universe. She doesn’t know and she doesn’t care. _Don’t hurt him._

At the top of the drive Audrey stops, hands on her knees, breathing hard. She’s the one who hauls Duke back before he can dart out of the treeline now. They crouch in the deepening twilight staring across the expanse of well lit grass before the entrance to the lighthouse. The doors are shut. Whatever’s happening in there -- and anything could be happening -- they’ll have to go in to find out, but not like this. They can’t go rushing in. They have the element of surprise on their side they shouldn’t waste it.

Facing Croatoan down seems like such a simple plan now, in retrospect. Getting Nathan out alive and whole while facing down Croatoan and whatever version of herself he’s cooked up feels hopeless.

Audrey points to herself and then the front doors, then she points to Duke and beyond the building. It’s better that they split up. If she fails… She’s not going to fail. There’s too much riding on this to fail. But it’s good to have backup just in case. She also doesn’t want to expose Duke to Croatoan before she has to.

Duke ignores her gesticulating to pull a vial out of his pocket. Blood. Troubled blood, by the look on his face.

Audrey shakes her head violently. Not now. Not yet.

Duke furrows his brows at her and nods. Yes now. If not now then when? “It could be too late later,” he hisses.

Audrey grabs the plastic vial and puts it back in his pocket. “You remember when we were stuck at the Keegan barn with that vine trouble and I joked you were better than a plan?” she hisses, angry and scared. “I meant it then. I mean it now. I need your brain, Duke, it can’t just be me on this. I’m not enough,” her voice cracks on the word. “You see things I don’t, you think of things I wouldn’t. Nathan’s going to need both of us to get out of there. If I turn on your Trouble right now then it’s just me...” Her voice breaks again and she curses it.

How far she’s come from the Audrey Parker who depended on no one.

She trusts Duke; depends on him to find a different angle when things go sideways. Despite everything, despite all the danger, selfishly, she’s glad he’s here. She’s glad she’s not alone.

“I can’t believe you were serious about wanting me for my brain and not just my body,” Duke jokes, expression gone completely affronted. Audrey cannot help the laugh that slips out. She slaps his shoulder, then kisses him frantic and fierce. His stubble scrapes against her lips and palms and Audrey has the horrible thought that this might be the last time.

She pulls away and leans her forehead against his. “Just so we’re clear,” she breathes against his mouth, “I want you for your body too. You’ve got a great ass.”

Duke chuckles “I knew it,” he says, trying to peer over his shoulder at his own butt.

Audrey grins.

He turns back to her and his expression changes, goes serious.

“Come back to us,” he murmurs, big hand cupped around the back of her neck.

“You’ll just make me if I don’t,” she answers lightly. Duke nods, laughing silently. “Be safe,” she pleads, pressing a kiss to his forehead.

“That’s me, I’m a safety guy,” Duke teases in his most ridiculous impression of a buttoned up suburbanite. Audrey wants to grab his arms and shake him, demand that he take this seriously but he knows, knows better than she does how dangerous this is. If he needs some false bravado to make it through the situation then who is she to take it away from him.

“Prove it,” she can’t help but dare.

Duke gives her a mock salute and a devil-may-care grin but he can’t cover his reluctance as he steps away. His hands go to his pockets as if to stop himself from reaching for her.

“See you inside,” he says simply.

“See you inside,” she repeats, turning away first so he doesn’t have to.

There’s nothing left to say. No promise they can make. There’s only the doing now. And in a way Audrey’s glad. The anticipation is always the worst part of anything. All those weeks leading up to the Hunter and the easiest part had been walking into the barn. _At least it’s over,_ she’d thought.

They split up.  

One way or another, this will be over soon too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a favourite line? part? snippet? I'd love to hear about it in the comments.


	8. Fraudrey

Audrey expected to have to sneak in. She expected to have to dodge a hundred cops with only her HPD ball cap to keep them from recognizing her. Instead the doors to the lighthouse are flung open, and everyone inside is so focused on the drama unfolding in the middle of the room that no one even notices her arrival as she slips into the little entrance hall that leads into the main room of the lighthouse.

The main room is round and full of people. There are cops and bible thumpers, there’s the guy from the liquor mart, Hank, and the owners of the B&B she stayed in when she first came to town – Melissa and her husband Noah.

Audrey finds Nathan in the middle of the room. He’s on his knees, his arm wrenched up behind his back to keep him there by a man in a blue jacket. The figure he’s facing takes her breath away. It’s _her_ , from her brown leather jacket to the scuff marks on her boots. She’s sitting with her legs crossed, tapping the toe of one boot impatiently. Audrey knew Croatoan had created a double, it’s all she’d been hearing about, but actually seeing it with her own eyes gives her a long, bone deep shiver. This isn’t an overlay; the hair is the same, the clothes might well have come from her own closet.

Audrey glances around warily. If the Fraudrey is here then Croatoan has to be somewhere nearby. He’ll want to witness the damage she wreaks.

“Nathan, Nathan, Nathan,” her doppelganger says, drawing her attention. She’s shaking her head in disappointment like some cartoon villain. “We talked about this already,” she taunts. “But you’ve always been this way, haven’t you. You don’t respect my judgment. That’s why you shot Howard when I went into the barn. Because you were weak.” She sneers and Nathan hangs his head. “Because you were selfish. It wasn’t to save me, it was so _you_ wouldn’t lose me.” Nathan’s shoulders slump lower and lower with each accusation.

Audrey is _horrified_ at the words, said with such cold relish, by this thing with her face.

She’s watched other people be duplicated before. She’d thought she’d understood how awful it was to have someone else wearing your face, but even when Mara was in control of her body at least everyone had known it wasn’t her. They had known the words and actions weren’t hers.

This…Audrey has _had_ those thoughts. They’re cruel, and she’d never have voiced them like that to _Nathan_ who has fought and bled and given up so much for her. He has respected her and supported her for all of their partnership, and so what if he was selfish for once in his life? She’d been mad as hell when she’d figured out what he’d promised The Guard, but in the end she hadn’t been able to hold onto that anger- because underneath it she was grateful to still be Audrey Parker, as guilty as that had made her feel.  He’d given her that chance with his actions, he’d told her it was more important to him that she get to be herself than it was for him to be rid of his Trouble.

She slips around the edge of the crowd, needing to see Nathan’s face. By the time she does Nathan is glaring up at her doppelganger from his knees.

“Isn’t you, isn’t the Audrey I loved. Can’t be,” he growls out, those blue, blue eyes full of emotion. “You fight for the Troubled. You shot the Rev when he went after Amelia. She was just a kid n’ he made her out to be a monster ‘cause of her Trouble. But you, Parker, you wouldn’t let him kill her. You don’t kill us, Audrey. You save us.”

Nathan wrenches his arm away from Montgomery. Montgomery makes a move to grab him again but the Fraudrey holds up her hand as Nathan rises to his feet.

“I am saving them. Five hundred years I’ve tried, I’ve sacrificed myself time and time again. I didn’t know, but I remember it now, I remember each and every time.”

Audrey’s breath catches in her chest at the reveal, it’s something she desperately wants and something she fears all at the same time. To know, first hand, what it was like living every one of those lives.

“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting different results. I can’t keep doing this, Nathan.” The Fraudrey shakes her head sadly, tears springing to her eyes. “It’s not fair, generation after generation cursed. There’s no cure for the Troubles. Better to end them now. It’s the kinder thing to do. I can save them from burdening new children with this.”

Audrey’s horrified. Genocide, the thing is talking _genocide_ as if it makes sense, as if it’s the obvious option.

“No,” Nathan argues. “The Troubled are _people_ , Parker. You’re the one who always believed that! Taught _me_ I was more’n my Trouble. There’s no cure, then so be it but this, this isn’t right. These are people. Real people, with lives and families. Who gives you the right to decide death is better for them? This isn’t you, Audrey. Isn’t what you would want. And if it is, then I can’t live with that.”

“Nathan,” Audrey whispers, worry and frustration forming a tight ball in her gut.

The Fraudrey cocks her head to the side, thinking, considering his words. Her hair falls over her shoulders just the way Audrey’s does.

“Won’t let you murder people in cold blood,” he warns.

There’s grief under the strength in his words. Audrey knows him well enough, she can guess what’s coming next. Audrey is glad to know he’d never let her go this far down the rabbit hole but oh, it hurts her heart that he’s been pushed this far.

Audrey draws her service weapon but Nathan steps in the way as if he knows she’s there.

“Parker, please,” he begs, hand outstretched. “Don’t do this.”

The Fraudrey leans back in her chair. “What gives me the right?” she scoffs. “ _I_ made them. _I_ Troubled them! How do I let them go on spreading and spreading this disease? No.” She shakes her head. “This is the only way.”

“If this is saving the Troubled, then you start with me,” Nathan declares, stepping forward, foolish and brave with his heart on his sleeve.

The Fraudrey’s eyes raise to his. She sighs, loud and dramatic.

“Fine. I was trying to spare you, Nathan. But if this is how you want it,” she shakes her head and stretches out an arm. The cops in the room, even under the effect of the Trouble, cry out in alarm. Of course, they’ve been through this seven times already. They know what’s coming.

In the space between breaths Nathan draws his gun on her, cocks the hammer.

The Fraudrey smirks as if amused, opens her mouth to make a comment--

Audrey pulls her trigger.

Nathan’s sacrificed enough, she couldn’t bear him living with the memory of this on his conscience.

Blood blooms red across her doppelganger’s face before she topples forward.

The room erupts into chaos. People flee for the doors, panicked and confused.

Nathan spins, eyes searching wildly for where the shot came from.

Audrey steps out of the hallway into the room proper and fires her gun a second time, into the air now, drawing all eyes to her. Nathan’s are wide and blue and confused but there’s relief seeping in there. Audrey nods to him and his face splits into a smile, wide and bright and real.

Audrey wishes she had a moment to smile back but there are still all these civilians. Nathan’s smile cuts off in a wince as the grin creases the skin near his eye where a great purple bruise is forming. He squints in confusion which doesn’t help things. His hands reach up to probe the spot and he flinches away, amazement lighting his face. _His Trouble_ , Audrey realizes, _it must have turned back on and it just turned off_. Something bright and warm fills her chest at the realization. But there’s still work to do; there are still four armed men gathered around the Fraudrey’s body. They look puzzled, like they don’t remember why they’re there but since they’ve got guns in their hands they’re damn well going to use them.

“Alright boys, I can put down the rest of you while you’re still loading those rifles,” Audrey announces, “or you can leave before I get really pissed you were following the wrong person’s orders.” Her knees are trembling at her own daring, but Audrey stiffens them, locks eyes with the nearest guy with a rifle. She doesn’t want to hurt anyone, they’re not to blame for falling under Croatoan’s mindwarp. She just also doesn’t want herself or Nathan to end up dead.

There’s slow applause from the balcony.

Croatoan emerges, sauntering down the stairs.

Audrey’s stomach flips.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a fav bit? line? I'd love to hear about it in the comments :)


	9. Croatoan

Something about him must spark the fight or flight response in the remaining civilians because the few who’d stuck around disappear out the door.

“Bravo.” Croatoan walks down the stairs, slowly, insolently, as if to show he’s not afraid of the gun in her hands. Audrey knows he isn’t. She’s got something better.

“Well done—”

“There you are.” Audrey interrupts what is sure to be another ridiculously pompous speech. She pulls the pack off one shoulder, tugging it around so she can unzip it. “I have a deal for you.” Her fingers close around the aether ball. It’s warm and smooth under her touch; she almost feels like it’s humming, waiting to be used. It’s a good feeling. She hates that it’s a good feeling.

Croatoan tilts his head. “Well, that’s not what I was expecting,” he admits, a proud paternal glint in his eye that makes Audrey’s stomach turn.

She pushes past her disgust to fish the ball of aether from her pack and holds it out. Croatoan’s eyes narrow in recognition- he takes the last few steps down the stairs much faster, almost without thought. Like a junkie spotting his next fix. Nathan glances warily between the two. His muscles are tensed, alert and ready for action, but he’s holding back, following her lead and she’s so grateful.

“All this,” she offers, “if you take it and leave. Never come back to this place.”

It’s a good deal. In terms of uranium, the sheer amount of aether she’s holding in her hands would be enough to make a nuclear bomb.

“You might be able to find more in the Void, but this much,” Audrey wiggles her fingers, rocking the ball, “all in one place, easily accessible?” She tosses the ball to her other hand.

“And this is supposed to be an adequate substitute for losing my daughter?” Croatoan asks.

“Your daughter’s dead,” Nathan spits, and then flies back into the wall opposite them with a flick of Croatoan’s wrist.

“Nathan!” Audrey forces herself to stay where she is but he’s not getting up. He’s not getting up! He always just gets back up. _But he felt that hit, he can’t just shake it off,_ she reminds herself anxiously. Instead she brings her gaze back to Croatoan, who looks as if this whole thing is the fourth inning at a baseball game, boring and tedious. That gets her back up. She’s bored of this game too.

“If you cared so much about your daughter you would let her go, Joseph.” He startles visibly at the name. Audrey wonders how many years it’s been since someone called him that. “She’s dead. I’m not some overlay. Mara was terminated. Charlotte made me whole. Even if I went with you it wouldn’t bring her back.” _Where is Duke_ , she wonders. She’s gotta wait for him. She keeps talking.

“And you should be ashamed of yourself for settling for a substitute! I’m not Mara. I don’t know you. I don’t love you. You’re not my father. Do you know how mad she’d be that you think you can replace her? That I’m what? Enough like her that it won’t matter?”

Croatoan looks blindsided by her words, mouth opening and closing but he’s got nothing. What can he say to the truth?

Behind him Nathan is starting to stir and Audrey feels a surge of hope. She tosses the aether ball to her other hand, keeping Croatoan’s eyes on her. If only Duke would show up. Where is he?

“Even Mara was afraid of what you had become, Joseph,” Audrey says sadly, no anger, no spite, she’s reeling him in with her sympathy now. Maybe somewhere deep down she can feel sad for this monster. Somewhere _deep_ down. “Even she knew you had gone too far.” Audrey shakes her head gently, the gesture full of regret. “Why do you think she and William started creating the Troubles? They were building an army for when you found them. She didn’t want to go with you.”

Duke’s head appears over the railing of the stair and Audrey almost cries, she’s so glad to see him.

“You don’t know that,” Croatoan snarls, stalking towards her. Audrey lets him get close. She needs him to get close. Behind him, Duke has reached the base of the stairs. Nathan’s sitting up.

“No? Charlotte told me that’s how she managed to trap her. Mara was terrified you would find her. She and William escaped to this world and when they knew you were getting close that’s when they started building their army against you. That’s what the Troubled were supposed to be- soldiers to defend them.” Audrey realizes the story she’s spinning for Croatoan is probably exactly what happened. She feels all the snippets she’s discovered fitting together, like finding just the right piece in a jigsaw to make the rest slot into place.

Croatoan looks hurt, genuinely, that his daughter felt she needed an army to keep him away. Audrey keeps talking.

“The Hansens who couldn’t feel; what would be better in a soldier? The McShaws who could lay waste to an entire food supply in a moment. The McBreens, who could drive you insane with a song? Why else would she create those Troubles? What would have been the point?”

Out of the corner of her eye she sees Duke crouch beside Nathan, finger on his lips to indicate the need for silence but Nathan knows that already. Audrey keeps her gaze focused on Croatoan, she doesn’t want him tipped off. Nathan glances from Duke to Croatoan, and Audrey can all but see his brain putting the plan together. He brushes a hand across the cut on his forehead and holds it out to Duke. Duke hesitates a moment and Audrey’s voice stutters before she finds her thread again.

“Mara knew you were coming. She was never going to go with you. She didn’t love you anymore. She was afraid of you." She's laying it all out now, the picture as clear in her mind as if she genuinely remembered it. Croatoan’s face darkens at her words but Audrey doesn’t give a damn anymore.

“She meant this place to be her last stand. She knew Charlotte was hot on her heels but you were close too, and you were scarier. She and William settled here so they’d have protection and that’s how Charlotte was able to catch up with them.” That’s how Charlotte started the whole cycle. The story is whole now, she can see it like she lived it; Mara's terror of her father, her rage at her mother, Charlotte's single-minded determination.  “Whatever else Charlotte did, she saved her daughter from you," Audrey spits at him, her own anger solidifying into grim satisfaction.

Croatoan’s fury is building like a thundercloud, purpling his face and neck but Audrey doesn’t care. Let him get angry. Angry people make mistakes.

Behind Croatoan, Nathan nods like he’s saying _you can do this_ and Duke reaches out, clasping Nathan’s bloodied hand. Audrey can’t see his face but from the way Nathan tenses it’s worked. Audrey’s next breath comes easier, she lets the loathing she feels color her next words.

“It was foolish to stay put but Mara knew what I know- your heart is as black as the aether you’re obsessed with. You don’t love Mara! You love some half-baked idea of her you’ve romanticized in your head for the last five hundred years.”

“My wife was a liar! You’re a liar!” Croatoan explodes, covering most of the distance between them in a few menacing steps. The monster under Mara’s bed is as terrifying as advertised, but Audrey isn’t Mara. He isn’t her father, she doesn’t remember being young and small and thinking he was the most powerful person in the world. She doesn’t have the baggage of betrayal and guilt and what used to be respect and love tangling her up. She’s not Mara; she has better allies. She holds her ground.

Duke turns, getting to his feet and while Duke is usually a graceful man, he moves with the poise of a panther now. His eyes are as black as the aether in Audrey’s palm. He stares at it ravenously, and Audrey has to fight the urge to run as he fights with himself. The Crocker Trouble wants aether and Audrey’s holding a veritable feast, but Voldemort over there has a lot of aether in him too.

“She’s not lying,” Duke grits out.

Croatoan spins, mouth open in genuine surprise. “Mr. Crocker, so good to see you, but you’re interrupting.” He throws out a hand without further preamble. Audrey reaches too, but hesitates, just for a second, hoping.

Duke keeps coming.

Audrey could cry. She’d hoped Croatoan didn’t have William’s talent with the aether, had hoped that if Duke went all black-eyed, Croatoan wouldn’t be able to pull his strings. She hadn’t really dared to believe that to be true.

“Weren’t expecting this, were you?” Duke asks, confident and powerful in a terrible way. “Thought you’d be able to pull my strings? You can thank Mara for cutting them away, Gepetto.”

Duke suspected too. It takes Audrey’s breath away. She wasn’t kidding about appreciating his brain.

Croatoan actually takes a step back as Duke paces forward, all that terrible strength kept in such careful check.

“When your daughter was here she supercharged my Trouble, made me like this,” Duke gestures to his eyes. “Left me… hungry.” Audrey doesn’t know if Duke is being creepy on purpose or if it’s coming out naturally but she is sufficiently disturbed.

“What a shame we didn’t meet like this in the Void,” Duke drawls, circling Croatoan who holds his ground but doesn’t take his eyes off Duke.

With Croatoan distracted she tosses the ball of aether into the air. It goes without effort, hovering just where she tells it. It feels natural, feels real in a way most things don’t but Audrey can’t think of that right now. She gives her wrist a twist, setting it into a spin. The core twirls on the spot eagerly, almost humming in expectation as Audrey flings her hand out toward Joseph Cross and _pulls_. Aether wants to join, it wants to gather all its pieces. Audrey isn’t Mara; she’s learned what Charlotte had to teach.

Audrey pulls and Croatoan turns to her, face full of shock as the aether springs to his eyes. She pulls and Croatoan resists. For a long, long moment everything seems to freeze.

Time itself stands still.

And then it starts up again.

The first blob of aether slips from Croatoan’s eyes and smacks into the ball of aether still hovering in the air.

He cries out in pain, stumbling backward as a second drop pulls free. He makes a wild grab for Audrey but then Duke is there, catching him from behind and holding his arms at his sides, squeezing him. Audrey knows that Duke is a big guy; he’s almost a whole foot taller than she is for crying out loud, but she’s rarely thought of him as intimidating.

He can be. He is tonight, arms banded around Croatoan, his face cold and empty of feeling. He’s whispering to Croatoan, something that makes the man struggle even harder.

Two, then three more blobs slip from Croatoan’s eyes all at once. Heartened, Audrey spins the aether core faster.

From outside they can hear the howls of heart hounds start up in the woods. Two more drops fly free and then the windows crash in with the force of a gale, a blast of freezing night air showering them with glass shards.

Croatoan’s using the Troubles he’s collected.

Duke doesn’t flinch, he holds and so Audrey ignores it too. She pulls, strong and firm and the aether keeps coming, almost a stream now, not just drips. Croatoan’s pulling in return, bending his will so hard in their strange mental tug of war that his forehead beads with sweat.

Audrey can feel how the aether listens to him. It wants to stay with him, but the aether he’s most recently stolen is fighting to come to her call. It’s Haven’s aether, _Mara’s_ aether and it listens to her first, has listened to her in one form or another for five hundred years. She will not let it disobey.

The curtains catch fire with a whoosh, like someone’s doused them in gas and held a lighter to them. Croatoan again. A pretty stupid Trouble to use considering it might burn him as well. Maybe he can only use the ones triggered by whatever he’s feeling at the moment.

Nathan rushes to beat the crackling flames out. It won’t take much for this whole place to go up. The fire leaps to the window frames before it even finishes gobbling the dusty old curtains.

Audrey pulls faster and faster with half an eye on the flames.

Through the empty window frames she can see Dwight and several of the townspeople fighting back creatures from the Void. Horrible nightmare monsters with teeth and claws and empty black eyes. They’re keeping them back from the lighthouse, giving her a chance. Audrey isn’t going to let them down.

She renews the strength of her pull, the aether core revolving overhead growing larger and larger, spinning faster. The flames go out as a blob emerges from Croatoan’s eyes.

She’s reclaimed Tom West’s Trouble.

She’s going to take them all back.

Each and every one.

Croatoan seems to realize this as well. His brow furrows in concentration and then Duke gasps, his eyes flickering from black to brown and black again. “Freezing Trouble!” he chokes out. Croatoan’s hand is wrapped around the bare skin of Duke’s wrist, frost spreading up his fingers, the tips rapidly turning blue.

“Duke!” Audrey gasps, the aether core slowing as her attention gets divided. Frostbite here in Maine is pretty common, they know all the dangers, he could lose those fingers if Croatoan doesn’t let up.

Audrey takes a step toward him and Duke shakes his head, teeth gritted. “Don’t stop, Audrey,” he orders and then Nathan is there, wrestling Croatoan’s arm away. They scuffle, Nathan grunting with pain whenever he grabs Croatoan’s bare skin and still he struggles, trying to pin the older man until Croatoan grabs his wrist the same way he got Duke’s. He holds it in a crushing grip, frost spreading up Nathan’s hand quicker than a blink, Nathan shouts as his hand goes from purple to blue. He falls to his knees, letting go of Croatoan, a black band of frostbitten flesh at his wrist.

“Nathan!” Audrey needs to keep the core in rotation, that’s helping more than wading into the fight would, but it’s hard to stay where she is.

“”M okay, Parker,” he gasps out, injured hand cradled to his chest, eyes wide and full of pain. “Keep it spinning,” he exhorts.

Duke takes over the fight, but Croatoan’s found his second wind and he doubles his earlier struggles. His forehead bashes into Duke’s chin; Duke yelps and his eyes go brown again. Croatoan can’t see Duke’s eyes but he must sense something because he wrenches an arm free and slaps his freezing palm against Duke’s neck and cheek, making Duke swear as his knees give way and he loses his hold.

Anger, hot and sharp, floods Audrey’s veins and powers the twist she puts into her wrist. Aether responds to emotion. She leans into that anger- _how dare he hurt them, how dare he threaten her_ \- and the aether responds, spinning the core faster and faster, drawing the aether out of him in starts and stops now as he fights her with more gusto.

“Who do you think I am?” Croatoan gasps, scrambling away from Duke and Nathan, who are warily getting back to their feet. He’s shaking, with fury or pain Audrey can’t tell. His face has gone gray and gaunt. “I’m not one of your little halfwit Troubled who you can manipulate,” he growls, advancing on Audrey. Audrey’s stomach flips; she didn’t expect him to be able to get away with the core spinning that fast.

Duke and Nathan exchange matched looks of ‘fuck it’ before they launch themselves at him. They don’t expect him to be prepared for them. He throws up a shield and they bounce off it.

Fear swamps Audrey like a boat taking on water, cold and fast and overwhelming. What if he gets away? They _can’t_ let him get away. Distantly, she wonders who he killed in the Thomas family to get their Trouble. It must have been when he first started the warp. She hadn’t heard of any of them being killed before.

“You dare to steal aether from me? Like some common thief?” Croatoan gets closer with each word he says. Audrey doesn’t mean to but her feet make the decision for her. She backs up, palms sweating, arm trembling. It’s hard to concentrate on pulling the aether and holding the core in spin above their heads right now. She hates that he can intimidate her like this.

She makes a choice; she stops pulling and draws her weapon. It’s cold and solid and fits her hand, not in a creepy supernatural way like the aether but in a hard won, years of practice breeding familiarity sort of way.

“Stay where you are!” she orders, the words slipping out from long habit.

Croatoan laughs- _laughs_! “Shoot me,” he dares.

So she does.

Three shots right in the center of his chest.

The blood blooms red against his sweater and he barely even flinches. She tries again, a fourth shot, this one to the forehead. He just keeps advancing, the blood streaming down his face even as the wound closes before her eyes.

The door crashes in off its hinges letting in a fresh burst of cold winter air. Framed in the doorway is a snarling hyena, bigger, meaner and more solid than any hyena Audrey’s ever seen. Its shoulders and chest are thick with muscle, but the eyes, the eyes are as black as the aether spinning overhead. A crocotta. She didn’t think they’d attack like this - physically - but the first is joined by a second. Croatoan’s smirk leaves no doubt why they are here.

The two stalk into the room, teeth bared on black gums. They must have had a feast with all the emotions spinning outside- she can see it in the confidence in their stride, the flicks in their tails. They have been well fed, but they’re still hungry.

Croatoan turns his back on them. They are none of his concern now.

They ignore her and the murderous madman, honing in on Duke and Nathan.

Croatoan’s eyes are wild as he stalks closer. Gone is the innocuous, slightly befuddled man. The patient, patronizing, fatherly vibe has vanished. Audrey has robbed him of his delusions. She has betrayed him by stealing his aether. He killed his wife for her betrayal. Audrey isn’t going to work with him, his hope for a happy reunion- the thin veil that has held his psyche together for five hundred years in the Void- is gone.

Behind them she hears Nathan and Duke fire but she doesn’t look away.

She sees it in his eyes. They are cold in his rage, calculating. He’s found that calm center where he can think despite the crisis. She knows what he’s thinking – what would aether that has been inside of one person for five hundred years be able to do? What marvels and horrors could he wreak? Would it be enough to return home and destroy the society that banished him?

Audrey rarely backs down, but she finds she can’t help the step back she takes.

Another and she finds the wall behind her.

Nowhere left to run.

Audrey Parker knows that hunger, she’s seen it on faces before, in holding cells across the country, in bars, in the group and foster homes she remembers growing up in. That hunger that turns people into prey. He doesn’t think of her as his daughter anymore.

All she is now is a vessel holding what he wants.

Croatoan stretches his arm out towards her and Audrey clenches her jaw, feeling the ghost of those Mickey Mouse scissors in her hand. She’s not just a wrapper. She raises her gun again.

Duke tackles Croatoan from the side.

They go down in a heap and Duke’s eyes go black again when the blood from Croatoan’s sweater gets on his hands. Inspiration strikes Audrey like lightning. Croatoan struggles but Duke pins him. Audrey says a prayer she doesn’t hit Duke and shoots Croatoan again. The bullet rips into his chest and he and Duke both cry out.

“The blood, Duke, the blood!” she shouts.

Duke’s eyes go wide, and then he gives her a sad little smile in the middle of this horror show, as if to say _of course_. _Of course it comes down to this._ Duke slaps his hand over the wound and the blood seeps into his skin just as she thought it would. Croatoan struggles, fighting to break Duke’s hold, fighting to dislodge his hand but the wound isn’t closing and Croatoan’s heart must be going a mile a minute now, the blood spurting red between Duke’s fingers and then disappearing into the back of his hand.

_It worked._

“Now, Audrey,” Duke croaks, startling her out of her amazed stupor.

She slams her hand out, and pulls. The aether streams out, eager to answer her call; it spins and spins and joins with the core.

Behind them Nathan’s gun goes off again and again, accompanied by the yelp of the crocotta, but neither Audrey nor Duke turn, trusting Nathan to keep them safe. The aether flowing from Croatoan is entering the core in a swift stream now, while his blood continues to seep into Duke’s fingers. The wound isn’t healing, isn’t closing, he’s bleeding out with each beat of his heart.

Croatoan tries to push Duke away, to scramble to his knees but he’s not strong enough, the blood loss and the aether draining out of him is weakening him.

“Audrey,” he tries, reaching out a hand in her direction. He’s a little off and she realizes he can’t see with the aether streaming out of his eyes. It’s the first time he’s genuinely called her Audrey since they met. “Please,” he begs.

Audrey steels her arm; the aether core revolves, like a top, like a tornado, it’s larger now, almost the size of a soccer ball.

Croatoan hasn’t survived this long to go down without a fight. He turns the hand he had reached out to Audrey and strikes as fast as a snake to claw at Duke’s eyes like the dirtiest street fighter. Duke gives a startled shout, falling back.

“Duke!” Audrey gasps, her heart leaping into her throat.

Seizing the moment Croatoan lurches to his knees, but before he can get any further Nathan is there holding him back. He doesn’t pull the freezing Trouble again- it must be one of the Troubles they’ve taken from him already. He fights though, with nails and fists, a cornered wild animal. Nathan is younger and stronger and he isn’t half blinded by the aether streaming from his eyes or the pain of having it ripped from him.

Nathan finally pins him, arms banded to his sides and Croatoan slams his head back into Nathan’s nose. Audrey can hear the crack from here but he holds. He holds through all the thrashing and the curses. He holds while the aether spins and spins, the core growing larger and larger still. Duke crawls over to them and slaps a hand down on Croatoan’s still bleeding chest. Nathan holds while the blood seeps into Duke’s hand. Until finally, finally, Croatoan goes stiff and silent and then still.

The last drop of aether swirls free, slapping into the core.

Joseph Cross’ eyes remain open and unblinking in death. A pearly film forms over them, little specks of black dotting the sclera the only bits of aether left.

His face is gaunt and grey and empty.

Duke sits abruptly on the floor. Audrey doesn’t feel very steady herself. She finally realizes her arm is trembling and lets it fall to her side. The aether core drops to the ground and rolls to a stop against Croatoan’s knee.

“Is he?” Nathan can’t quite finish the sentence, it’s too big a question for words.

“Yeah,” Audrey says, relief flooding her like a wave. “Yeah, he is.”

She glances around the round room. There’s glass everywhere, the curtains are ripped and charred. The dead body of one of the crocotta lays a few feet away from them. She doesn’t know where the other one went.

“Are you guys okay?” she asks, stepping toward them but her knees don’t seem to want to cooperate so she stumbles. Nathan’s there to catch her, looking considerably worse for the wear. There’s blood smeared down his face and his nose is swelling even as they stand there. “I got you, Parker,” he tries to say but it comes out more like “I gob oo Parker.”

“I uhm…” Duke raises his hand like a kid in math class. “I might not be,” he says, and then his eyes roll up in his head and he falls backward like someone’s cut his strings.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay so this chapter ends where it ended in the doc. Before I could even ask my beloved beta Jadzibelle if I should bump it down a paragraph or two or bump it up a paragraph or two she left me a note saying this is a deliciously masochistic way to end this chapter LOL Soooooo I left it bc she is a bad influence. :) Please don't kill me? It's not my fault? Everything's going to be okay? (In like 7 days anyway). 
> 
> That said if you have a favourite part I'd love to hear about it? And if you wanna scream at me well I guess I deserve it heehehehee
> 
> (Also - Seriously they ended the show and they never explained why Mara started Troubling people other than just bc she could? Seriously? Seriously?!?!?!? So much BS! I had to fix that.)


	10. It Never Ends

“Duke!” Audrey can’t tell which of them cries out first but they’re both there, crouched around him. His eyes are shut. He’s not bleeding from anywhere. She didn’t accidentally shoot him. The nasty scratch marks Croatoan left have already scabbed up.

“Duke!” Nathan shouts, shaking his shoulder roughly.

“Stop, stop!” Audrey urges. She puts her hand on Duke’s neck searching for a pulse. Nathan drops his own hand to rest on Duke’s chest and they wait, long, painful seconds until he inhales, until Audrey feels the beat of his pulse under her fingertips.

“He’s alive,” she tells Nathan for the second time in three days.

Nathan nods, eyes wide and wet with tears he won’t let fall. “Course he is, how’s he gonna brag about saving the day if he’s dead?” Nathan grouses, his usual rumble gone nasal but he can’t quite hide the worry behind it.

Audrey laughs because it’s that or cry. “We need to get him to the hospital.”

She wishes it was a joke- the hospital’s been out of supplies for two weeks now but it’s better than nothing. Audrey doesn’t know what absorbing that much Troubled blood will do to Duke but she’s only ever seen him pass out once and it scares her. It scares her more than Croatoan ever did.

She gets to her feet and goes to look out the nearest window. The scant hope that with Croatoan dead his monsters would follow suit disappears. There’s pandemonium outside the lighthouse. The floodlights must be solar powered because they’re on and in their white light they can see the townspeople fighting monsters over every square inch of grass and into the trees.

Acid Touch guy from the station- _Carl? Clint? Audrey can’t remember_ \- who was driving Laverne nuts is there fighting a Spidren. Hank from the liquor store, who was just inside trying to deliver the Troubled, is hacking away with an axe at something that is more puddle now than creature. Alex Sena freezes a trio of hart hounds and Lisa Hawkins zips between them, the first one shattering when her hand closes around its throat. There are regular folk out here too. Stan, Settle and Rebecca are here with shotguns, standing back to back. The baristas from the coffee place down the street from the station are here and one of the nurses from the Freddy. All of them fighting for their town. A wave of gratitude swamps Audrey for a moment and she has to blink back tears.

They came.

Miraculously, amidst all the carnage the Bronco stands intact not fifty feet from the door, at the end of the path. Audrey and Nathan exchange glances.

“Bronco is a tank,” Nathan points out. “Make it to the truck, can make it through the grounds and out to the open roads. Maybe. Better’n standing around here,” he suggests.

Audrey eyes the huge crater of a dent already in the front bumper from driving it through the fence. It’s better than standing around here.

“How are we going to-”

“Can carry him,” Nathan grunts, already hauling at Duke’s unresponsive frame.

It’s not easy getting Duke up. Nathan’s hurt, more than he’s admitting to- his arms are shaking and he’s favoring his right shoulder- and Duke is as limp as overcooked spaghetti. They almost drop Duke twice,and Nathan curses louder than Audrey’s ever heard him speak. Nothing wakes Duke, though. And then Audrey notices something.

“Stop!” Audrey orders.

Nathan jerks to a halt, almost dropping Duke back to the floor.

“You’re bleeding on him!” she warns. The cut on Nathan’s forehead is dripping onto Duke’s shoulder when Nathan bends over him to try and haul him up. She hates to say it but she can’t imagine absorbing any more Troubled blood will help the situation.

Nathan blanches, going even paler. He lets Duke back down to the floor as gently as he can and steps back, hands up like he’s under arrest.

“I think you reopened the cut when you bent over,” Audrey reaches for his head and Nathan flinches back.

“Not such a tough guy anymore, huh,” she teases, reaching again. He flinches again, takes a step back, hands going out to ward her off. Audrey’s stomach drops as something she can’t quite parse crosses his face. Whatever it is it makes her pause, her hands still stretched out.

What? Nathan always-

“What is it?” she asks, forcing herself to remain still, not to back off or feel hurt. They need to get Duke help. That’s the priority. She doesn’t have time for feeling hurt.

Nathan looks torn, gaze flicking from her to Duke, to Croatoan’s body behind her. “Just-”

“Nathan,” she prompts.

“Parker…” He still can’t seem to find the words and Audrey lets her hands drop.

“Look, we need to get Duke out of here,” she tells him, trying to keep the hurt out of her voice. She doesn’t know why he doesn’t want her to touch him but she’ll respect his wishes. “You have to let me bandage your cut so we can do that. I won’t touch you after if you don’t want me to,” she assures him.

Nathan makes a horrified noise and then he’s there, grabbing her hands, long fingers twining around her wrists, holding on insistently.

“S’not that, Parker,” he tells her, glancing behind her again. “I,” his voice cracks, “-- was going to shoot you, Audrey,” he rasps. “Was going to kill you. Can’t imagine _you’d_ want to touch _me_ ,” he confesses.

Audrey snorts, hard. “God, Nathan, are you kidding me?” she asks, pressing a hand to his cheek. He leans into it like a plant turning toward the sun and Audrey feels the ball of ice in her stomach dissolve. “I’m glad you were going to kill her,” she says it with all the pent up violence still rattling around in her system.

Nathan startles hard, staring at her with wide eyes.

“She was going to kill the Troubled, Nathan! All of them!”

“Thought she was you, Parker! I’m supposed to love you but I drove out here to kill you!” He protests.

“Good! You know me, Nathan! You know how I feel about the Troubled! I don’t want to be loved like that! I would _want_ you to kill me if I had gone that far off the rails!”

Nathan doesn’t answer, not in words. He drags her into his arms and holds her for a long, long moment. She can feel his chest rising and falling with his short, sharp breaths, feel the tremors wracking his body. Audrey wraps her arms around him in return and holds on. They don’t stay that way for long but it helps, it helps so much to have Nathan here with her. She blinks hard to keep the tears away.

“You know who I am, even when _I’m_ not sure,” she whispers into the collar of his jacket, making him shiver when her breath ghosts over his neck.

Nathan squeezes her tight and then steps back, cheekbones tinged pink.

“Woulda been hard to find a new partner if I’d shot you,” he teases.

Audrey lets out a bark of laughter. “Imagine the paperwork,” she agrees.

Nathan gives her a soft smile, traces his thumb over her cheek.

“Let’s get out of here,” she suggests and he nods. She tears a strip off the singed curtains to bandage the cut on his head. It’s going to require stitches, she’s sure of it. It sits only an inch below the one he got in the Void. This one he winces and swears softly over as she bandages. He puts a ginger hand up to feel the bandage once it’s in place and Audrey’s heart swells at the sight.

With the cut bandaged as best as they can, they try again to pick Duke up. Working together they finally manage to get Duke slung over Nathan’s shoulders fireman style. Duke has to be pressing on some sore spots- Nathan got flung into a wall, twice, for pete’s sake- but he only grunts and sets his jaw in that stubborn Nathany-way he has and Audrey doesn’t say anything. Duke groans at the jostling and they hold their breaths for a moment but he doesn’t wake.

Audrey checks her weapon, and wishes for a shotgun. Nathan passes her Duke’s gun as well, which she tucks in the waistband of her jeans. They’re about to leave when she remembers the aether core. She turns back and scoops it up, looking down at Croatoan’s corpse with cool dispassion. He’s grey and skeletal, his skin gone paperthin without the aether inside. He looks like he’s been dead a hundred years already.

“What do we do about him?” Nathan asks from the doorway, glaring down at the dead man.

Audrey kicks the body, swift and sharp and satisfying. “Leave him.” she answers with finality, striding away from her own personal Voldemort.

He doesn’t matter anymore.

Outside the moon is full and huge, almost directly overhead, and the air is cold and stinging. The hill is littered with creatures from the Void, locked in combat with the people of Haven.  Melissa has gained a baseball bat from somewhere and is swinging it like her life depends on it. It does. There is a bear fighting a gar that she can only assume is someone with a Trouble. The gar’s wings are in tatters, keeping it earthbound. Audrey watches bewildered and amazed as a funnel cloud picks up a crocotta and flings it over the cliff, then she spots Marion Caldwell a few feet away, grinning with pride. Audrey grins too, amazed.

Everywhere Audrey looks there are more knots of people defending Haven, beating back the monsters.

The problem is that for every one they take out there are three more slinking, charging, snarling out of the woods.

A large shadow looms out of the darkness and Audrey brings her weapon up, prepared to shoot but the shadow resolves itself into Dwight. He’s bloody and soot streaked, limping but otherwise intact.

“Dwight!”

“Is he-” they speak over each other.

Audrey nods fiercely. “He’s dead. Croatoan’s dead.”

“Good,” Dwight says, nodding. “Good.” He sags with the same relief Audrey’s feeling, a smile lighting his face. Audrey finds herself returning it. It's been so long since she saw Dwight smile.

“Is Duke-”

“Hurt. Need to get him to the hospital,” Nathan explains tersely.

Dwight nods, eyeing the ground to the Bronco. “Do you need help?” he offers.

Nathan shakes his head. “I got him,” he huffs, tightening his arms around Duke’s legs.

Dwight nods. “You take point, I’ll bring up the rear,” he offers Audrey.

Audrey smiles and nods, claps Dwight on the arm. They leave the relative safety of the building and hustle as best they can down the curving white path. Fights continue to rage around them, every noise making Audrey jump. Dwight’s shotgun goes off in a tremendous roar behind them. Audrey glances behind to see a spidren keel over, half its head missing.

She raises her eyebrows in incredulity at Dwight who made that shot from thirty feet away in the dark. Dwight grins, bashful but pleased and then shrugs.

Audrey laughs.

They make it down the rest of the path unobstructed. They’re maybe ten steps from the Bronco when the growling starts. The crocotta from earlier- there’d only been one body. It paces out from the shadows by the Bronco on three legs, the fourth dangling useless at the paw. It bares its teeth at them and Audrey is so damn tired, she’s fed up. She’s fought enough damn things today.

It bunches its muscles ready to spring and Audrey fires, emptying her clip into the thing’s skull.

She’s had enough.

Even Dwight and Nathan are gawking at her when she wrenches open the door of the Bronco. She knew Nathan hadn’t taken the time to lock it behind him.

“Well?” she demands.

They just killed Croatoan, mythical fiend who’s terrified the Eastern Seaboard for at least the last five hundred years and she still doesn’t get a break. Duke might be dying and it’s her fault, again. There are still monsters to fight. And when that’s done there’ll still be the Troubles.

Audrey Parker may be a workaholic but she has had enough.

Nathan starts forward and Audrey climbs into the Bronco. Between Audrey pulling and Nathan and Dwight pushing they get Duke situated on the bench seat. Audrey buckles him in then lets him fold over so his head rests in her lap, threading anxious fingers through his hair. He’s limp but his color’s good and his breathing isn’t labored. That’s something at least. Nathan and Dwight make it around the other side of the Bronco without incident and Dwight slams Nathan’s door for him.

Audrey looks out at the field through the windshield. That’s Haven out there, they’re fighting for their town. It gives her a little rush, pride in her people filling her chest. She glances at Dwight as Nathan turns the key still sitting in the ignition and feels a pang.

“Are you sure you don’t need to go to the hospital?” she asks.

“Nah,” Dwight shrugs, “not done cleaning up,” is his simple response.

Audrey gives him a sad little knowing smile. They’re not the only ones with work still to do.

“Be safe,” Nathan orders.

Dwight smiles. “You too,” he taps the door and steps away from the truck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a fav line? bit? I'd love to hear about it in the comments :)


	11. The Hospital

The engine revs to life with a roar, as patient and reliable as Nathan himself. It startles combatants across the grass and too many sets of eyes turn to them.

“Got your seatbelt on, Parker?” he asks, voice thick and nasally now as the swelling sets in.

Audrey reaches out and squeezes his leg. “Let’s get out of here,” she tells him.

Nathan cuts a wide arc turning around and then guns it, heading for the gates at top speed. Trees and people and monsters whip by. A heart hound comes loping out of the woods, huge paws eating up the distance between them on a diagonal that’s heading right for the passenger side door and Duke. Audrey doesn’t even have time to cry out when suddenly great thorny vines sprout out of nowhere. They grow in seconds, a foot, and then two. The heart hound attempts to leap it and the vines are suddenly seven feet tall and the beast disappears into the new hedge without even a howl.

She spots two young women on the edge of the plants- Megan’s sisters-in-law, Audrey recognizes after a moment. The two wave as she and Nathan hurtle past them. Audrey gives a dazed wave back.

They run over… something, Audrey can’t say what exactly but the Bronco bumps and she tightens her hold on Duke as the back tires hit whatever it was again.

And then they’re through the gates, speeding down the road, taking the curves without slowing.

Audrey glances back at the lighthouse and her breath catches at the sight. It’s like something out of a movie. The moon is full and high, almost directly over the tower of the lighthouse. In its silver light the battle rages, the people of Haven - Troubled and Untroubled alike - joined together to fight back against the monsters of the Void. The sea is wild, slamming itself against the cliffs so hard the spray fumes above the black shadows of the land, glinting silver in the moonlight. No matter what happens tonight, no matter what happens tomorrow, Audrey will hold onto this: the Troubled and the Untroubled worked side by side tonight defending their town, defending each other’s right to live. Haven came together for one beautiful, brave moment.

She looks down at her lap, she just hopes she hasn’t sacrificed Duke to get it.

She cards her fingers through his hair again and prays silently to anything that’s listening to bring him back. She knows she’s greedy, she’s had too many miracles with regard to Duke, there’s no reason to grant her this one. Still, she prays.

Nathan drives grim faced and stiff jawed. He keeps glancing at Duke and back at the road. Audrey reaches out and catches his hand on the wheel, draws it to rest on the back of Duke’s neck. Nathan startles when he feels the clamminess of Duke’s skin under his fingers and Audrey smiles softly, settles back in her seat, watching the way some of the tension leaves Nathan’s shoulders. Four streetlights pass and then Nathan flashes her a grateful little smile.

They make the drive in silence, their fingers brushing every now and then as they each stroke through Duke’s hair.

They don’t have words anymore.

What is there to say?

They won but at what cost?

The scenery flashes past them and Audrey stops seeing it, her world pulling inward to just her fingers in Duke’s hair, only the bumps and potholes they hit on the empty coast road registering. She startles hard when Nathan jerks the Bronco to a stop outside the hospital.

Surprisingly enough, people swarm out. There’s a stretcher and lights and people in scrubs and they bustle Duke off before Audrey’s even really processed what’s happening, but Nathan is already following and so she slides out the driver’s side door of the Bronco.

The drop to the ground from the seat jars her knees and shakes some of the stupor from her thoughts, enough for her to convince her feet to trail them inside.

Inside the hospital there are even more people. They ask a lot of questions that sound like they’re coming from miles away. She doesn’t know the answers, but Nathan does, he answers things like blood types and medical history and she stands there feeling small and useless.

There’s a gasp from the other side of the waiting room that cuts through all the chatter. She looks up to find Gloria staring at Duke’s retreating gurney.

“Gloria--” Audrey starts, but she doesn’t know how to finish that sentence. Gloria’s a tough old bird, she rarely flinches, but her face when she spots Duke…

“What happened to him?” Gloria demands, getting a hold of herself and hustling over.

Audrey wishes they’d had the time to tell her, wishes they’d been able to let her in on their plan. She knows the older woman cares about Duke. She deserved to know he wasn’t dead. And now...

“Audrey?” Gloria says again and Audrey startles hard, snapping back into focus. Gloria reaches out and takes her arm, “Are _you_ okay?”

Audrey swallows and nods sharply, fighting back the sudden sting of tears at the concern in Gloria’s voice. She really cannot have her being nice to her right now. Her composure can’t take it.

“Okay, kitten, take it slow,” Gloria soothes in her gruff way. Gloria calls Duke kitten. Audrey knows she doesn’t use that term on everyone. She bites her lip hard. “Tell me what happened,” Gloria asks again. Her voice shakes but there’s compassion beneath that, worry for Duke and for Audrey coming across loud and clear. Audrey feels her face crumble in the face of that sympathy, tears flowing hot and fast down her cheeks without her permission. She dashes them away but there are more right behind them even though she can’t afford it right now.

Gloria’s hand on her arm tightens as her eyes widen in alarm at Audrey’s tears.

Audrey swipes furiously at her eyes and forces herself to explain. “His Trouble,” she starts, fighting hard against the wobble in her voice, “he used his Trouble and now- now he won’t wake up!” It comes out in all but a whine despite her best efforts. She can hear it. She shakes her head hard to clear it. She has to tell Gloria what happened, she has to get Duke help, she has to be coherent but the words are…

“Tell me from the beginning, kitten,” Gloria directs, patting her shoulder.

“I really need you to stop being nice to me,” Audrey protests, scrubbing at her cheeks. Gloria’s face creases in sympathy making the tears come faster. But she listens, she lets go of Audrey’s arm and schools her face into something closer to the no-nonsense professional Audrey’s used to dealing with.

“Tell me what happened, Detective,” she directs.

Audrey reaches for that person, for Detective Parker to deliver the information. She takes a breath but the words aren’t cool and detached facts when they come out. “He collapsed, Gloria. He just collapsed!” She shudders with the remembered terror of the moment, the words coming as hot and fast as the tears, worry she hadn’t even dared think bubbling out. “His eyes rolled up in his head and he _collapsed_ , just like last time with Mara, but this time he didn’t let anything out, this time he absorbed so much Troubled blood, so much and he was okay then but what if he’s not now? His eyes rolled up in his head and he just collapsed. He won’t wake up. We shook him and called and Nathan almost dropped him and he just won’t-” Audrey bites savagely down on the inside of her cheek trying to stop the tears, she’s frantic and that’s helping no one. She has to rein it in, damnit.

“Audrey-” Gloria glances from the gurney with Duke and back to her, clearly torn.

“Go with him,” Audrey begs. “Please.”

Gloria squeezes her hand. “Chin up, kitten,” she husks out, “he’s tougher than he looks,” she promises.

It’s no kind of promise, Audrey knows. It’s just blind hope. But what else do they have left?

Audrey nods, wrapping her arms around herself. She’s cold. So cold.

Gloria takes two steps before turning back. “Audrey,” she says, urgent and brisk, “did you get him?” Audrey blinks stupidly at her for a moment, forcing her to clarify, “The no-marks killer. Did you get him?”

“Yes,” Audrey bobs her head. “He’s dead.” She says the words, but there’s no rush of warm satisfaction. They’ve jumped one hurdle. There’s still more to deal with.

Audrey looks around for Nathan and realizes he’s not there, he’s… she can’t spot him anywhere in the waiting room.

“Nathan,” she calls, and she can’t help the shrill edge to her voice. “Nathan?” She turns back to Gloria, an awful thought dawning: is this another warp? Did they not kill Croa- “We came in with Nathan, right?” she demands.

They did.

She remembers they did.

“Nathan!” she shouts, much louder than her inside voice should be.

“Parker,” he answers and Audrey’s knees go weak. She turns to see him hustling out from one of the doors right off the waiting room. “I’m here,” he calls, his nose is back in place but someone in scrubs is following him looking flustered and a little annoyed.

Audrey doesn’t care how many medical personnel he’s pissed off. He’s here. He’s still here. This isn’t a warp. She flings herself at him, fitting against him just the way she should, the way she’s always fit against him. His arms are strong and wiry and they wrap around her, warm and steady the way they’ve always done. “‘M here, Parker.” He whispers it over and over again into her hair, rubbing a hand up and down her back. Audrey suddenly realizes she’s cold all over except where he’s touching. She doesn’t cry any more, she doesn’t even come close but she holds on for a long, long while. Shock. She’s going into shock, a distant part of herself recognizes but Audrey doesn’t have it in her to care. It’s safe here in Nathan’s arms, safe and close and sheltered.

Even that isn’t enough, though. Her muscles tighten as the worry seeps back in. _Duke..._

But Nathan knows, the way he always does. “He’s gonna wake up, Parker,” he whispers it in her ear and oh, how she wants to believe that.

But they’re back where they were six weeks ago: Duke’s collapsed from aether and there’s nothing they can do for him. Except this time it’s _her_ fault, not Mara’s. _She_ put him in this position. _She_ asked him to take all that blood. He didn’t explode anything either. He took it all in. Who knows what it did to him.

“Let’s go find him,” Nathan suggests. “Been a while. Don’t want him waking up alone,” he adds. The ‘again’ goes unsaid but Audrey hears it in the silence.

She pulls away from Nathan and takes a shaky breath. She can do this. She can pull it together for Duke.

“Yeah,” she croaks.

The girl in scrubs behind them catches Nathan’s arm.

“Chief?”

Nathan startles at the title as much as the hand.

The girl flushes but doesn’t let him go. “We need to treat that frostbite first, then you can go back and look for your friend.”

The term ‘friend’ rankles Audrey but this poor kid - Audrey recognizes her now, she met her at the high school during the darkness Trouble, she’s a second year med student at U of M, home for the weekend and stuck for the duration - she doesn’t know any better. Audrey doesn’t know what to call him anyway. “He’s our partner,” she settles on the correction.

The girl nods, unphased. She’s been here for weeks now. She really doesn’t give a crap who Duke is to them.

“It’s better if we treat this now,” she insists, steering them back into the exam room. “You need to give the doctors time to work on your partner. It makes it harder for them to treat patients when family is there,” she says bluntly.

Nathan looks torn but finally wraps his good arm around her shoulders. “C’mon Parker.”

Audrey follows with a pang but she doesn’t think she can let go of Nathan right now. He takes the chair in the sterile white room, shucks his coat and rolls up his sleeve gingerly. Audrey threads her fingers through his free hand as soon as he’s done.

“Been a long time since someone’s held my hand at the doctor’s office,” Nathan jokes.

Audrey feels a blush heat her cheeks. She’s being clingy. She attempts to let go of his hand but he tightens his grip in response, shakes his head.

“Stay,” he says, blue eyes gentle and steady on her face. “S’nice,” he adds shyly and Audrey blinks away more sudden tears.

Through their blur she can see there are four white, finger-shaped burn marks on Nathan’s wrist and the back of his hand. If they’d gone for treatment anywhere outside of Haven on this particular day it would have raised a whole wealth of questions. Tonight, their med student doesn’t even bat an eyelash.

“Detective Parker?”

Audrey zones back in at her title on automatic high alert. The girl has finished wrapping Nathan’s arm and is looking at her quizzically.

“Are you hurt anywhere?” she asks Audrey and she sounds like it’s not the first time she’s asked.

Audrey takes stock and amazingly, outrageously, she’s fine. She raced through woods in the twilight, she fought a madman in a crazed supernatural way, she faced down hearthounds and crocotta and drove here going at least thirty miles over the speed limit and she’s fine. She’s fine. She starts to laugh, and laugh, and laugh.

“Detective?” the med student asks.

“Parker?” Nathan tries and she pulls it together enough to answer him.

“I’m fine,” she wheezes and then giggles some more. “I’m fine,” she repeats, shaking her head when he stands up. She is. She’s fine. How ridiculous is that.

“Audrey,” he says and she can hear the worry in his voice but he shouldn’t be worried, she’s fine. _She’s fine._ The laughter bubbles up even stronger, she can’t stop.

“I’m fine!” she tells him, but he’s Nathan, he doesn’t listen. He pulls her into his arms and smooths a hand over her hair, soothing her with his presence and his quiet murmurs. His jacket is wet under her face. For a long moment she can’t figure out why.

“Could you check on Duke for us?” Nathan asks the girl, clearly trying to give her a minute to have her nervous breakdown in private and Audrey appreciates that, she does.

The door closes behind the girl and the room is quiet and still. Audrey doesn’t think anywhere has been this quiet since the fog wall went up. She doesn’t let go, just holds on, leaves her face buried in his jacket. He smells, probably no better than she does, sweat and smoke and terror but under all that just of Nathan. He smells like home.

Her breathing evens out, her shoulders stop shaking but Nathan doesn’t let her go. He holds.


	12. Healing

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For those of you who are familiar with the [Aches and Pains](https://archiveofourown.org/series/188381) verse you'll probably recognize Marissa, (if not you should definitely go read it bc OMG the angst and the tenderness kills me!!!). She belongs to [Jadzibelle](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadzibelle/pseuds/Jadzibelle) and was borrowed with much gratitude :)

They stand just like that in the long moments until the med student comes back in and tells them they can see Mr. Crocker now. Her tone is hushed and respectful on the name.

“He...I think,” she furrows her brow like she’s not sure she’s remembering right, “he helped cure my cousin Cally’s Trouble.”

“He did,” Audrey confirms. God, was that just three days ago?

“If he needs anything, just let me know,” the girl says, gratitude and a little bit of awe in her voice. It’s good to hear-- surprising, but good. Audrey wants Duke to wake up to hear it too.

“Thanks,” Nathan answers for them.

The room she leads them to is huge, with dozens of curtained off beds. There are other people around, the groans of the injured and ill as prevalent in the air as the scent of bleach and sanitizer. Their med student leads them to the last curtain. Inside they find Gloria and a short, plump, pixie of a girl in a cable knit sweater and a tiered skirt. She has one hand on Duke’s forehead and another on his stomach.

Audrey opens her mouth to demand to know who the hell she is when she realizes the girl’s pretty, round face is creased in concentration and a lightbulb goes off in Audrey’s head. A healing Trouble? Audrey glances to Gloria who gives her a look that clearly says ‘don’t interrupt’.

“Marissa! I’m sorry!” their med student’s gaze darts from from Marissa to Audrey and Nathan, alarm clear on her face. “I didn’t realize you were still here.”

She was stalling them earlier, Audrey realizes. She knew Marissa was working on Duke.

Marissa opens tired eyes and smiles wanly, the hint of dimples showing in her cheeks. Audrey can see how in happier times this girl would be a ray of sunshine; as it is, the grief and stress and deprivation they’ve all experienced in the last few weeks have laid their mark on her.

“It’s okay, Katherine.” She lifts her hands off of Duke and stands, wobbles a moment but Nathan grabs her elbow and helps her find her balance.

“Thank you, Chief,” she tells Nathan, taking a deep breath. “Gloria asked me to do what I could for Mr. Crocker.” She addresses Nathan and Audrey now, voice soft and soothing.

“What’s wrong with him?” Audrey demands. The girl is grey with exhaustion and swaying on her feet and Audrey knows she sounds ungrateful but Duke’s still unconscious!

“I helped the frostbite on his arm, but honestly he’s mostly dehydrated, his blood sugar’s too low, and frankly he’s exhausted beyond what most humans can cope with without falling into a coma.” Marissa fixes them with a look. “I can tell without touching you that the two of you aren’t much better off.”

Audrey flushes under the look.

“Gloria’s got an IV going for the last two. It’s not life threatening.” She leaves off the part where she should save her strength for cases that are but Audrey hears it nevertheless. She sees the gray bags under the girl’s eyes, the pallor of her skin. She can imagine the effort it takes to do what she does. Still, she wants to beg her for more, to wake him up, to fix him.

“He should wake up on his own in a few hours,” Marissa tells her, not unkindly.

Audrey is pretty sure she heard wrong. “He’s okay?” Audrey asks, feeling slow and stupid. She glances at Nathan but there’s a smile spreading across his face, wide and genuine.

“He will be,” Marissa assures her.

Audrey looks down at Duke. His coloring’s better, his breathing’s deep and even. He really could be asleep. The cold pit of worry in her stomach can’t believe the girl’s claims, can’t believe they could really be that lucky.

“Told you he’d be fine, Parker,” Nathan’s hands squeeze her shoulders.

Audrey doesn’t know what to think. She wants so badly for it to be true that Duke’s going to be fine, but that seems like too much. How can they expect _another_ miracle?

Audrey bites her lip and nods. “Thank you,” she offers, forcing the words out between her teeth.

Marissa smiles. “I’m glad to help,” she says quietly. “I’m sorry I can’t do more but I get really sick if I do too much.”

“S’alright,” Nathan says. “Thank you for doing what you could.”

Marissa looks away, and then turns back. She reaches out her hands, one going to Nathan’s forehead and the other low on his torso. Nathan flinches at the initial contact but holds still after, nods in silent permission. Marissa closes her eyes and after a long moment Audrey can see the bruising on Nathan’s broken nose start to fade. A few minutes later and even that is gone. The cut stays, jagged under the stitches, but even the swelling around his nose melts away.

Marissa’s eyes flutter open and it’s Audrey’s turn to grab her elbow, holding the swaying girl on her feet, hope stirring in her gut.

“I’m alright,” she tells Audrey, “I’m okay.” She pats Audrey’s hand and steps away but lets the med student - Karen? - come to wrap an arm around her waist. She leans against the other girl but addresses Nathan. “You’ve done so much for us - the town and the Troubled.” She smiles up at Nathan. “You and Mr. Crocker,” she glances at Duke, “I had to help.”

Nathan reaches up to touch his nose in amazement and smiles at the girl, one of those rare, real grins.

She healed Nathan, maybe, maybe...

“Thank you,” he tells her sincerely.

“I’m sorry I can’t heal the cut but I’ve--”

“You’ve done a lot,” Katherine cuts her off with a glare at the other people in the room. “And now you’re going to go rest,” she declares.

Marissa gives her a soft smile and nods. “The boss has spoken,” she declares to the room with a wry grin, and lets herself be lead away.

Once they’re gone Audrey turns to Gloria with a raised eyebrow. “You could’ve told us,” she says with reproach.

Gloria shrugs. “You could’ve told me about Duke,” she replies.

And yeah, okay, Audrey deserved that one. Nathan flinches and looks guilty but Gloria sighs and limps around the side of the bed. What happened to her, Audrey wonders.

“It’s okay, Cheekbones,” she tells Nathan then surprises them both by drawing him into a hug. Nathan goes with remarkable grace, folding himself down around the older woman. Gloria pulls back and pats him gently on the cheek. “I’m glad you listened and went out there and did something.”

Nathan laughs. “Didn’t do much,” he says, scrubbing at the back of his neck.

Audrey snorts.

“I’m sure,” Gloria snarks then sobers. “Marissa, she can only do so much. She gets sick if she overdoes it. She can’t help everybody though she’d like to try,” Gloria sighs. “I called her out tonight because I heard you on the radio, Audrey.” Gloria gives a tremulous smile. “You did good, kiddo,” she tells her, patting Audrey’s cheek now.

Audrey feels her own smile tremble too. She gives Gloria a jerky nod.

“We couldn’t find much wrong with him,” Gloria continues, dropping her hand to rest on Duke’s leg over the blanket. “Ran a whole battery of tests.”

Someone has taken off his coat and his bloodstained sweater so he’s just in one of Nathan’s grey t shirts. It makes him look younger, vulnerable against the stark white sheets.

“We called Marissa when we couldn’t figure out what to do.” Gloria shrugs helplessly. “If she says he’s okay then he’s going to be okay. We just have to wait for him to wake up, I guess.” Gloria doesn’t look like she likes that idea any more than they do.

“Staying with him til then,” Nathan declares, squeezing Audrey’s shoulder. She’s grateful for the contact, grateful for the backup. They are. They’re staying.

Gloria rolls her eyes.  “You damn well better! Neither of you needs to go out there and get yourselves killed tonight. You’ve done your part, let the rest of the damn fools in this town do theirs,” she scolds.

Audrey grins. She knew there was a reason she liked Gloria.

“Call me when he wakes up,” she adds, nodding at Duke. “I’ve got an earful for him,” she threatens, and Audrey smiles. She’ll bet she does.

They nod and promise to page her and Gloria leaves with a clink of curtain hooks. She sticks her head back in. “Don’t steal any chairs from the waiting room,” she orders and then is really gone.

Audrey winds her arms around Nathan’s torso. So much of the tension he was carrying earlier is just _gone_ and Audrey realizes how much pain he’d been in- that he’d pushed through, for her, for Duke, for the town. She drops a kiss over his heart and buries her face in his shoulder. Being loved by Nathan Wuornos is constantly humbling. She can’t believe how much he’s put himself through for them.

His strong hands come up to comb through her hair. “He’s gonna wake up, Parker,” Nathan rumbles and that is exactly what she needs to hear.

She steals a chair from the waiting room not five minutes later.

The bed is too narrow to fit on it without jostling Duke and she wants to let him sleep as long as she can.

The actual waiting room was caved in two days after the shroud went up. The makeshift waiting room is filled with rubbermaid chairs donated by one of the stores. Of course, by donated, she means the roof flew off and the store’s merchandise was being strewn down the street. Nevertheless, she stalks into the semi-crowded waiting room and walks out with the chair like she owns the place which is the real key. Vickie’s in there, sketching the slash on someone’s arm closed. She catches Audrey stealing the chair but doesn’t make a fuss, just gives her a quick wave. Audrey waves back.

She passes TJ Smith two beds up from Duke, looking the worse for the wear. Audrey has no idea what happened to him after Nathan got him away from Duke two days ago. She should go find somebody in authority. She should get an update for what’s happening in the town, attempt to help somehow, but she just cannot muster up the actual wherewithal to do that. Someone else needs to deal with it. She’s done enough.

She finds Nathan seated on the floor just where she left him, back pressed to the one solid wall in the room, butt probably going numb on the cold tile. She clears her throat.

“Thought you went for coffee, Parker,” Nathan rasps when he opens his eyes. Audrey sets the chair down right next to Duke’s bed - not that there’s anywhere in the room to put it that wouldn’t be right next to Duke’s bed - and then holds out her hands to Nathan. He takes them and she pulls him up- groaning the whole way. He rubs a spot on his lower back once he’s standing and winces, then smiles. Audrey grins too.

“Sit,” she instructs, pointing to the chair.

He does as told and when he does, Audrey climbs into his lap. He huffs a laugh and rearranges so she’s more easily balanced, her legs thrown over the arm of the chair, her head on his shoulder.

“Better?” he rumbles and she can hear and feel his words, amused and fond, and yes, it is better.

She reaches out and snags Duke’s hand. His fingers are still cool even though Duke always has warm hands. Someone’s washed the blood off them, at least. She wraps both of her hands around his, trying to lend him some of her warmth.

Nathan fits his hand on top of theirs and Audrey blinks back the burn of tears. She closes her eyes and turns her head into Nathan’s shoulder. Her stomach’s doing that thing where the adrenaline’s gone and all she has left is the shakes. Nathan wraps his free arm around her, holding her carefully to him.

After a moment she sits up with a start. “Am I hurting you?” she demands.

Nathan gives her a beatific smile, like she’s accused him of being the best pancake chef in Maine, and tugs her head back down. “You’re fine, Parker,” he insists.

Audrey closes her eyes again, just for a minute. She deserves a minute.

 

\-----

When she wakes again she has the start of an idea tugging at her conscious mind. The lights are all dimmed in the room, the beeping of monitors and the occasional groan from the other residents making it clear that the beds have filled up while she was asleep. Whatever she was thinking of, it was important, she’s sure of that even as she keeps struggling to grasp it. She opens her eyes to find herself alone in the chair. She’d slept through Nathan picking her up and putting her back down? She can’t believe she was that out of it. She sits up, blinking sluggishly, trying to figure out what time it is, wondering where Nathan’s gone, that niggling thought of an idea still bothering her.

The idea goes out the window when her eyes land on Duke staring at her in the grey light.

“Duke?” she whispers, the thrill of elation lancing through her body, bright and sharp and quick. They’d said he’d wake up. They’d said so!

He smiles, slow and almost shy. “Hey, Audrey,” he says gently, casually, like he hasn’t had them worried sick.

Audrey launches herself onto the bed, wrapping herself around him, fingers tangling in his hair and his t shirt, clinging without shame. “Duke,” she hiccups, halfway to a sob. Relief crashes over her like a wave.

_He’s awake._

His arms come up slowly, carefully, as if she’s fragile, as if she’s made of glass, as if _she’s_ the one who collapsed and wouldn’t wake up for hours and hours. They’re warm and steady and Audrey wasn’t sure she’d ever feel them around her again. She lets out a noise that’s obnoxiously close to a whimper and Duke tenses under her.

“Are you crying?” His voice is soft, teasing, trying to turn tears to laughter- they both know how often it balances on the knife’s edge lately. “Because crying will not be tolerated.” It’s a stupid joke. She’s heard him make it half a dozen times since she’s known him. It’s such a Duke thing to say she promptly bursts into tears.

“Are you hurt?” he asks, concern robbing his voice of all the humor it just held. His hands turn searching now.

She shakes her head.

“I’m fine.” She forces the words out. They rasp painfully against her throat, but she’s got to say them. She doesn’t want him worrying.

“Is it Nathan?” Duke’s whole body goes stiff at the thought and that brings Audrey’s head up.

“No,” she says, putting her hand on his cheek to hold his attention. “Nathan’s okay,” her voice cracks on the word, eyes burning  “I thought-” she hiccups and tries again, “I thought--” The words get stuck in her throat, she can’t get them out, can’t...

“Hey, hey,” Duke soothes, rubbing her back in long strokes. “It’s okay,” he croons against her temple. “Nobody died,” he jokes and that, that is too much.

Audrey pulls away enough to haul back and hit him in the shoulder, hard.

“Audrey!” he protests on a laugh, even as he folds her back into his arms again, even as she wraps her own around him tighter than before.

“That’s a terrible fucking joke, Duke Crocker,” she hiccups into the opposite shoulder.

Duke kisses her hair and then tips her chin up. “I’m sorry,” he says and his eyes are so serious, so concerned in the dim light that Audrey can’t help but kiss him, quick and hard, like she means it, like she was sure she would never get to again.

When she breaks the kiss she pulls back enough to cup his jaw. “Are you really okay?” she demands, searching his face for any sign of discomfort.

“I’m fine,” he promises her, the words coming automatically and she glares.

He runs his hand over her hair again and takes a moment to consider the question before adding, “I feel really good actually. Great for someone who just went twelve rounds against--”

There’s a strangled noise from behind them and Audrey turns to find Nathan standing there, two coffee cups in hand. They slip from his fingers to splatter on the floor at his feet. He jumps back as the hot liquid spatters his pants but his eyes remain on Duke.

They stare at each other for a long, long moment and Audrey can’t speak the language they share of inclined eyebrows and micro-expressions but she knows they have a whole conversation in that time.

“‘Bout time,” Nathan tells Duke, still not looking at the spreading puddle.

Duke smirks, shrugs. “Better late than never,” he jokes.

Nathan makes the awful sound deep in his throat that he makes when he’s overwhelmed and then he’s there, wrapping his arms around Duke and Audrey too, holding onto them like he’s afraid they’ll disappear if he lets go. He’s trembling head to foot, Audrey can feel the tremors working their way through his body where he’s wrapped around them. She brings a hand up to stroke his back, the nape of his neck, up into his hair, her hand brushing past Duke’s as he does the same. Nathan doesn’t say another word, just holds, breathless and silent. It’s too much, Audrey realizes, he’s on overload. She can’t say she doesn’t understand the feeling, she understands it too well.

They stay that way for long moments until Nathan pulls away to run worried hands over Duke, his face, his neck. It takes Audrey’s breath away that Nathan can do that now, check him over with his touch.

Duke catches Nathan’s hands, looking floored at his reaction.

“I’m okay, Nate,” he tells him, and Audrey can hear how he’s trying to reassure them, to take care of them instead of the other way around.

“Should call the doctor or Gloria,” Nathan rumbles, the words coming out heavy and grating like they have to squeeze past a lump in his throat to get out. Audrey knows that lump too well.

Duke gets his hand around the back of Nathan’s neck and draws his forehead down to meet his own.

“I’m alright, Nathan,” he says quietly, all trace of humor gone from his voice.

“You just collapsed,” Nathan laments, naked grief on his face catching them all off guard. Duke blanches at the concern and  Audrey feels tears prick her eyes. She catches Nathan’s hand and squeezes while the chill of fear his words evoke has the fingers of her other hand tightening their grip on Duke’s t shirt. Nathan looks down at his shoes, at the wall, at the ceiling, trying to rein himself back in.

“I’m sorry,” Duke offers, hesitant and more than a little worried, eyes fixed on Nathan.

“Don’t do it again,” Audrey orders, the words slipping out without thought.

She feels Duke’s chest shake with the laughter that bubbles out of him.

“I will try my best not to,” he promises, voice wry and fond.

Nathan glances up sharply at their laughter and makes that awful sound again. He drops his face into the space between Duke’s neck and shoulder and clings the way Audrey had. They wrap around him again and Audrey curses the narrowness of the bed, wishing they had more space, wishing they were home.

When Nathan’s breathing has settled into something quieter Duke pulls away gently. It’s his turn to run his hands over Nathan’s face.

“How long was I out?” he asks, ghosting his fingers over Nathan’s nose, clearly looking for the bruising he remembers.

They take turns explaining what’s happened over the last couple hours. Duke traces his thumb more firmly over the bridge of Nathan’s nose as they do, closes his palm over Nathan’s wrist that’s warm and pink again the way it should be.

Audrey’s so grateful to Marissa.

They won’t bear Croatoan’s marks.

Audrey and Duke shift over on the bed so they’re sitting with their legs dangling off the edge, making room for Nathan who fits himself right up against Duke’s free side.

“No one’s checked you over?” Duke asks Audrey, looking at her sideways from under the shock of hair that’s fallen across his forehead.

Audrey startles at the accusation, Duke knows her too damn well. “I’m fine,” she protests.

“Are you?” Nathan worries. “You almost collapsed out there, Parker.”

Audrey rolls her eyes. “Yes,” she assures them. “I’m-” the disbelief and indignation on their faces would make her laugh under other circumstances. She gives in to their worried looks with a sigh. “If it will make you feel better Gloria can check me over,” she promises.

Nathan nods, satisfied, and Duke grins smugly.

As if summoned by her name Gloria pushes aside the curtains a moment later. She freezes in the doorway and stares at Duke for a long moment.

“You’re not going to cry too, are you?” he teases.

Gloria scowls but there’s a suspicious sheen to her eyes. “Would I shed tears over the most ridiculous Houdini wannabe I’ve ever met?” she grumbles.

Duke grins and slides off the bed to hug her nevertheless and she lets him, squeezes his shoulders when she pulls away, puts her hand to his cheek. “It’s good to see you, kid,” she says, sincerely, and Duke has to glance away. He looks overwhelmed. It makes Audrey glad. Duke needs more people in his life who see his value for more than what he can do.

“Had us worried for a while.” Gloria lets her hand drop, falls back on false gruffness to cover the emotions she’s fighting to keep off her face.

Duke squeezes her hand gently. “So I’ve heard,” he says.

“I don’t want to heap any more on your plates,” Gloria says, pulling back to address all of them, “you three’ve done more than enough but Dwight called. They’re outnumbered and the things from the Void just keep coming. He could do with a miracle right about now.”

A sliver of cold fear pierces Audrey’s heart. They had looked like they were winning when she left. She had thought they were going to be alright. She slept for three hours when she should’ve been doing something.

“Tell him to fall back, Gloria.” The thought that had been nagging at her brain suddenly pops to the forefront. “Tell him to call them all back. I’ve got an idea.”

She brushes past Gloria without even waiting to see if she calls Dwight. Two beds down she finds what she’s looking for.

“Hey, TJ!” Audrey shakes his ankle. “Get up,” she orders.

He sits up scrubbing a hand through his frazzled hair. “Detective Parker?” he asks, squinting in the dim light. “What is it?”

“We’re going to get rid of the Void creatures and you’re going to help us,” she tells him.

TJ blanches.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Got a favorite line? bit? pararagraph? (I hope so bc Duke finally woke up!) Why not tell me about it in the comments :)


	13. The Bard and the Town Protector

The next half-hour passes quickly. They find a notebook and a pen for TJ. The wounded from the battle at Moonrise Point start pouring in. Gloria pokes and prods and scolds when Audrey comes clean about the hit she took to the back of the head. Audrey gets three stitches and Nathan holds her hand for them.

“S’only fair, Parker,” he grins when she raises a brow at him.

Audrey rolls her eyes but threads her fingers through his anyway and stifles a smile.

That doesn’t stop her from cursing like a sailor when Gloria puts the first stitch in. She grits her teeth and vows never to leave Riley a tip at the Gul-- Wow. She pushes the thought away. Concentrates on gritting her teeth and not squashing Nathan’s hand instead.

By the time the stitches are in TJ’s ready and Duke’s argued his way into coming with them.

“How can you let these two go running off on their own,” Duke appeals to Gloria, gesturing to Audrey’s stitches.

“You’re not as good an influence as you think you are,” Gloria argues, whacking his shoulder with his chart. None of them miss how gentle the blow is or the smile on her face.

Audrey grins and Nathan hides a smirk behind his hand at Duke’s outraged huff.

“What if it doesn’t work?” Gloria demands, bringing them all back to business.

“Then we’re no worse off than we were before we tried,” Duke points out.

“Should do it from a central location,” Nathan suggests, “last time the Troubles spread out from TJ.”

Audrey nods. It’s a good idea. She knows just the place.

\-----

Outside the hospital night has started to lose the battle to day; there’s no sun on the horizon but the sky is edging from black back to the blue grey tones that herald the dawn. Gloria limps across the parking lot on Duke’s arm. She twisted her ankle at the station and that’s all the information they’re getting out of her on it.

Before they can get to the Bronco they run into Dwight, making a hospital run with two of his people. He stops them for a sitrep and they fill him in on the plan. He insists on going with them after that. Audrey is grateful to see him alive and well, is glad to have him with them on this mission.

\-----

The drive to Tuwiuwok Bluff is up a narrow, winding road and Audrey holds her breath, expecting to be ambushed at every curve. The sky goes pearl grey and then brilliantly pink as dawn breaks. They get to the top just as the sun is stretching its first fingers across the dark blue bay, gilding the choppy waves with gold.

Audrey remembers the drive up here that first day, not sure what to make of the snarky detective with the daddy issues. She’d had no idea what was to come, but she’s glad it was Nathan she’d met that first day, glad it was Duke who pulled her out of the water. There were so many other ways that day could have gone. Literally; she knows there have been seventeen other ways that day went, one for each of the other overlays. She glances at her boys with a smile. She’s glad it went this way, with these people, her partners.

Nathan turns off the engine and they all get out. It’s startlingly quiet, only the murmur of the waves and the whisper of the wind. The grass is pale and crunches beneath their feet, frost flowers disappearing beneath heavy soled boots.

“TJ?” Audrey prompts, turning back and brushing the hair out of her eyes. The breeze is fierce and cold off the ocean, flinging her hair in stinging handfuls across her face.

TJ hustles forward with huge eyes and a blue bruise blooming under his three day stubble. He rattles the notepad in his hand.

“Ready,” he tells her, voice cracking nervously.

Audrey gives him a reassuring smile. “Just think of what we talked about and try,” she tells him. She isn’t worried though. She’s filled with the calm that goes along with finding exactly the right button to push, the right words to say to solve a Trouble. They’d been going about things all wrong. They’d been ignoring their biggest resources for too long. They need to _use_ the Troubles, not just shut them down.

TJ nods, swallows hard.  “Okay so uh, I wrote this myself. Hope it’s okay. I’m not much of a writer,” he began.

“Get on with it, Shakespeare,” Gloria grumbles.

TJ gives her a hurt look but clears his throat and begins to read.

_“Once upon a time there was a town called Haven.”_

Gloria snorts. TJ rattles his paper again, noisily, and pauses. Gloria rolls her eyes but remains silent. TJ begins to read again.

_“It was a beautiful town, near the sea and full of magic. The people there had been under a curse for hundreds of years when a horrible spell locked them away from the rest of the world. The town was wrapped in fog, the people in despair. Then a terrible and powerful wizard brought new creatures to Haven, monsters to lurk in their woods and howl at their windows. The monsters rampaged through the town, killing without mercy until the fiercest knight, the town protector, decided she would stand it no more.”_

TJ glances up at Audrey with a hesitant smile, Audrey shakes her head with a grin in return. The wind off the water blows through her hair, lifting it off the back of her neck and she sucks in a great lungful. It tastes like salt and freedom. TJ can call her whatever he likes this morning.

_“The town protector set out to do battle against the wizard with her most loyal knights at her side. They defeated the wizard, whose downfall was his great pride. But still the monsters remained to plague the townsfolk._

_“She found the town bard and revealed his curse to be a blessing in disguise. His words would flow and become truth only when he chose. The town protector and her valiant band of heroes rode out to the bluffs from whence the town got its name and there the bard spoke these words.”_

The sun is rising over the waves as TJ clears his throat. Golden shafts of light stretching across the dark blue ocean, catching on the ripples, bouncing off the fog wall, lighting it orange and pink with its rays. Audrey is captivated by the way the light sparks off the water, and is idly wondering if she’s going to keel over from exhaustion before TJ finishes when his voice rings out, strong and suddenly commanding, echoing across the beach and into the woods, touching all the places the newborn sun touches.

_“Creatures from the Void, in a place not your own_

_Crocotta, spidren, heart hounds that reave bone_

_From aether you were bound, from aether you were grown_

_I call on thee to hear these words and turn to stone.”_

They all wait with bated breath in the sudden silence. The roar of the ocean comes back first, then the chirp of birds. Finally TJ shakes himself and grins.

“You can’t tell me that wasn’t pretty cool,” he enthuses.

“How do we know it worked?” Duke asks.

“You felt it, dude,” TJ insists, “We all did!”

Audrey cannot deny that she actually felt something. She looks up at Nathan who's squinting into the morning sun. He meets her look with a nod. They all did.

\-----

The walk back to the trucks is horrifying. They spot no less than four statues in the woods, a trio of heart hounds mere feet from the path and a spidren frozen in mid climb up a tree. The drive through town back to the hospital is full of sights like it, spotted through the underbrush and in between the trees. Audrey shudders to think just how many of them were here in Haven.

There's even a spidren frozen on the sloped roof of a building on Main street perched like some overgrown gargoyle, its face stuck in a vicious snarl.

"You can start rumors of an eccentric sculptor once we get the shroud down," Duke tells Dwight with a grin and a clap on the shoulder.

Dwight harrumphs with good nature.

"If you do it right people'll pay good money to cart these things out of here!"

Audrey grins and pats Dwight's shoulder sympathetically.

She’s pleased to hear Duke say when and not if.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> and so we come to the end of Day 4. Days 5-10 will be covered in the next fic, it's pretty short we're coming up on the end. Thank you for everyone who's left kudos or taken the time to write me feedback, they've all been treasured and used as inspiration to keep posting even when RL was being a pain and way too busy and stealing all my creative mojo. I hope you all have a 2019 that's full of surprise good things you weren't expecting.


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